Stakeout (2013) Read online

  “Why’d he kill him?”

  “I don’t know. You have to ask him.”

  “How’d he kill him?”

  “Shot him.”

  “Where’s the gun?”

  Morgan held up a plastic evidence envelope.

  My mouth fell open. I hadn’t seen a gun at the crime scene, and it hadn’t occurred to me there was one.

  “He have it on him?”

  “No. He kicked it under the bed.”

  “That’s pretty dumb.”

  Morgan looked at me. “No, he’s a smart boy. Probably didn’t figure on being arrested. Thought he’d be long gone before the cops came.”

  “His prints on the gun?”

  Morgan shook his head. “He wiped it clean.”

  I got the impression this was a routine. The bad cop knew the answers to the questions before he asked them. He and Morgan were playing a little scene in front of the suspect, to rattle him and break down his resistance.

  They needn’t have bothered. I was born rattled. And my resistance was virtually nonexistent. Of course, if they never asked me a question, I wouldn’t have to answer.

  The cop who wasn’t Morgan stood there looking at me. “Forgive me if I stare. Hardly ever see a killer. Leastwise, not a white one. I wonder what his bag is.” He looked at Morgan. “Is he a fag? I bet he’s a queer. I bet this was a lover’s quarrel gone bad.”

  Oh, great. I not only got a bad cop, I got a homophobic racist too. And the son of a bitch still hadn’t asked me a question. He just kept dancing around, playing his little game. I sat and seethed.

  I knew what he was doing. He was frustrating me. He was not letting me talk to make me want to talk. He knew before he even asked I wasn’t going to cooperate. I was an out-of-town PI, from New York City, no less, a species regarded somewhere between paramecium and pond scum. So he wanted to soften me up for an interrogation he knew would be like pulling teeth.

  “Okay, you’re a private eye from New York. You tailed this guy to a motel, staked it out to see what happened. When nothing happened, you went in and found him dead.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “Unless you shot him, that’s what happened. You gonna say you shot him?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Then that’s your story. You know it, I know it. The only one who doesn’t know it is Morgan, who’s too damn dumb. So if you didn’t kill him, it’s not your gun, you didn’t even know it was there. Unless you shot him and kicked the gun under the bed. But that would be too dumb, even for Morgan.”

  “Thank you,” Morgan said.

  “Anyway, if you shot him we could prove you fired the gun with a paraffin test. Unless you wore gloves. You know the problem with that, Morgan?”

  “If he wore gloves, where are they?”

  “Right. So, let’s say, just for the sake of argument, you didn’t shoot him. In that case, someone else did. If you were on duty, as a private investigator, watching that unit from the time the guy checked in, while you may be a rather unpromising murder suspect, you sure as hell are a promising witness. You saw the murderer. The arrival and departure of the murderer will be logged into your detective’s notes. Along with a thumbnail sketch of the killer.

  “So, we looked through your possessions when we brought you in here. We also obtained a warrant, and searched your car. Guess what? No notes. So, you’re either the world’s worst private detective, or you killed him.”

  He took a breath. “Now, we could go on, but I’m not big on guessing games, and you’re probably not big on sitting there being insulted. What’s it gonna be? You have the right to remain silent, but that doesn’t mean you have to. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  4

  I TOLD THEM EVERYTHING.

  I know, I know, that blows my image as a PI. I was supposed to hold out on the cops, follow the clues myself, solve the case ahead of them. Only in this case there seemed no reason. I’d been hired to find out if my client’s husband was cheating. Well, he wasn’t, at least, not tonight, and certainly not anymore. My client hadn’t hired me to find out who killed him. Granted, he wasn’t dead when she did, but even so. There was absolutely no reason to hold anything back, so I didn’t.

  Not that the cops were the least bit grateful. On the one hand, they despised me for talking. On the other, they didn’t believe a word I said.

  Bad Cop regarded me with disgust unlikely to have been equaled in the annals of the New Jersey police department.

  “You just walked in and found him dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “You expect us to believe that?”

  “It’s what you said I did.”

  “It’s what I said your story would be. I didn’t say it was true.”

  “I’d have to be the stupidest guy alive to shoot the guy and kick the gun under the bed.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “How can you not believe my story?”

  “It has a few significant gaps.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’d say the most glaring was the arrival and departure of the killer.”

  I said nothing.

  He continued, “According to your story, no one had an opportunity to kill him except you.”

  “Not at all.”

  “What do you mean, not at all?”

  “If you searched the motel room, perhaps you noticed the connecting door.”

  “That was locked.”

  “Of course it was locked. The killer locked it when he went out.”

  “How’d the killer get the guy to open the door?”

  “Maybe this meeting was part of some prearranged plan.”

  “The guy planned to be killed? I tend to doubt that.”

  “He didn’t plan to be killed. He planned to take part in some shady deal. He was sneaking though a connecting door to meet someone in a motel room so they wouldn’t be seen entering his.”

  “Or he wouldn’t be seen entering theirs,” Morgan said.

  Bad Cop looked at him in surprise. “You buy this guy’s story?”

  “No. But in case it happens to be true, no reason why the dead guy’s so all-fired important. Maybe there’s a big meeting next door that this guy doesn’t want to be known to take part in, so he arranges to rent the next unit so he can be there without being seen entering. As far as I’m concerned, that makes more sense than these guys rented a unit so they could call on him.”

  “Yeah, fine,” Bad Cop said. “But that’s only if we buy this guy’s story. Which there’s no reason to do.” He turned back to me. “We searched your car, and you know what we found?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well, we found a Gatorade bottle smelled like piss. I suppose you have some romantic idea guys on stakeout piss in ’em. But we didn’t find a gun permit.”

  “I don’t have a gun permit.”

  “Why don’t you have a gun permit?”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “What the hell kind of PI are you, you don’t have a gun?”

  “Your basic, law-abiding type.”

  “Yeah, sure. Now I’ll tell you what happened. You followed the guy to a motel where he was shacking up with a hot babe. You phoned the wife, she came racing over, burst in, shot him dead.”

  “What happened to the hot babe?”

  “She went home. She’s married, she doesn’t want to get involved. That leaves you with the wife. You’re freaked, you probably would have split, except she’s got a gun. She offers you a ton of money to stake out the place until the police arrive so you can swear she was never there.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “All right. Let’s ask her.”

  The door opened and my client came at me like a harpy from hell. Her hair was a mess, her lipstick was smeared, her eyeliner was running down her cheek. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed, and came flying across the room, an outraged goddess swooping down to disembo
wel the mortal chained to the stake.

  Morgan intercepted her in the nick of time, steered her away. She slumped into his arms, weeping uncontrollably. She twisted from his grasp, backed off, and stood there like a beast at bay, panting, her chest rising and falling in a way that I had to remind myself was not the least bit erotic. This was difficult as she was wearing a tank top not designed to stifle such thoughts.

  “You’re supposed to be a PI. You’re supposed to help people. How could you do it? Oh, my God! My God!”

  Bad Cop said, “Just so there’s no mistake, ma’am, this is the man you hired?”

  “Of course it’s him.” She looked ready to go across the room again. Morgan took a protective step between us. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

  “You hired him to follow your husband?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because you thought he was having an affair?”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t call you, tell you your husband was at the motel?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “You didn’t try to find your husband at the motel?”

  “Of course not.”

  “This is the first time you’ve seen him since you hired him?”

  “Yes, of course it is. Why are you asking me these questions?”’

  “Sorry, ma’am. We just have to keep the record straight. The fact is, you haven’t seen him until just now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “There now, ma’am. We won’t inflict him on you any longer. If you’ll just come with me.”

  Morgan ushered her out. I was glad to see her go. I would have liked to talk to her, but not in front of the cops. Not in her current mood. Good God, what a shock. Yesterday her biggest problem was her husband was stepping out on her. Today he’s a corpse.

  Bad Cop turned to me. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I’ve already said it.”

  “Do you confirm that’s your client?”

  “I thought she confirmed it.”

  “She did.”

  “Do you dispute it?”

  “No, she’s my client. At least she was. I have a feeling this may terminate the employment.”

  Morgan came back in the door.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Okay. She’s sort of mad at him.”

  “Of course she is. He killed her husband.”

  “So she says. Of course, she’s not a good witness. She couldn’t testify to it. Unless she saw him do it.”

  “I doubt it. Her anger seems genuine. If she watched him do it, why would she be pissed off?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Some broads are like that. They ask you to do something, they’re angry when you do.”

  “What’s the matter, Morgan. Have a fight with your wife?”

  “Leave my wife out of it.”

  “You’re the one always bringing her up.”

  “I can bring her up. She’s my wife.”

  “You’re saying I can’t talk about her?”

  “You can talk about her when I talk about her. That’s friendly. Bringing her up when I don’t talk about her is something else.”

  My head was coming off. They’d forgotten about me. My client’s widow had just tried to kill me, and they could have cared less. There was only one reason for that. They’d made up their minds. My client’s accusation had cinched it for them, they were going to hold me come hell or high water, and now they were just waiting for some prosecutor or other to show up and haul me in front of a judge.

  I wondered if I should call Richard. But it seemed strange to demand an attorney when no one was questioning me. I had to wait till they did. It couldn’t be long. They couldn’t keep up the small talk forever. It would drive them nuts. It was driving me nuts.

  Bad Cop turned back to me. I braced myself, ready to stick up for my rights.

  “Okay,” he said, “you can go.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “We’ll bring you back if we need to talk to you some more, but right now we’re done.”

  Morgan was on his feet. Standing he looked portlier than ever. He unlocked the handcuff, ushered me over to a side door. I followed him down a dark corridor into an anteroom where four men in plain clothes were hanging out. I thought they were cops until Morgan said, “Okay, guys, let’s go,” and I realized they were suspects just like me. Well, not just like me. Some of them were probably guilty.

  Morgan pushed the door open, and out we went.

  It was another dark hallway, so dark the guy behind me kept bumping me into the guy in front of me.

  I was just wondering why they didn’t turn on the lights when someone did. Suddenly it was so bright I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

  A voice said, “Stop moving. Stand straight. Face front.”

  I stopped, looked around.

  Behind me was a white wall with black height markings on it.

  I was in a police lineup.

  5

  I GLARED AT BAD COP. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  He shrugged. “What do you mean, me? I didn’t do anything. You’re the killer.”

  “If you wanted me to take a lineup, all you had to do was ask me to take a lineup. You didn’t have to trick me into it under the guise of letting me go.”

  “What do you mean, ‘trick’ you into it? No one tricked you into anything. Everything was by the book. We put you in a lineup, and the witness picked you out.”

  “Picked me out as what?”

  “As the killer, of course.”

  “Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “You got an eyewitness saw me pull the trigger.”

  “Are you worried we do?”

  “I’m not worried at all, because I know you don’t.”

  “We’ve got the next best thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Eyewitness evidence and circumstantial evidence. You put the two together it makes quite a convincing case.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not convinced. You gonna let me go, or do I have to call my attorney?”

  “You have the right to an attorney. You always have had the right to an attorney, and you always will have the right to an attorney. He’s not going to do you any good, since we got you dead to rights on a murder rap, but you certainly have the right to one.”

  “I want to call my attorney.”

  “Your request is duly noted. We’ll be sure to accommodate you at our earliest convenience.”

  Bad Cop went out the door and returned moments later ushering in a twitchy-nosed gentleman who looked not at all happy to be there.

  “Is that the guy?” Bad Cop demanded.

  I stared at him. Since I didn’t know who “the guy” was, I had no idea if the twitchy-nosed gentleman was him.

  It turned out he wasn’t talking to me.

  Twitchy-nose was a little man with a whiny voice. “You said I wouldn’t have to meet him,” he complained.

  “Oh, come on. He’s handcuffed to the wall.”

  “Now he is,” Twitchy-nose whined. “What about later?”

  “There’s not going to be any later, if we get him for murder.”

  He shuddered. “Yeah, murder. You got me face-to-face with a killer.”

  “So. This is the guy you saw?”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “The quicker you get through it, the quicker you’ll be out of here.”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Walked across the parking lot, knocked on the door of unit seven.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Someone opened the door and let him in.”

  6

  RICHARD ROSENBERG WAS AT HIS scathing best, and, trust me, that’s good. Richard didn’t get to be New York City’s top negligence lawyer by being polite. His withering sarcasm in court could bring opposing counsel to their knees. Attorneys settled out of court with Richard just s
o they didn’t have to meet him in court. His settlements were proportionally higher than those of any other negligence lawyer, and deservedly so.

  “You are the stupidest private investigator who ever walked the face of the earth.”

  “Richard—”

  “You are the stupidest person who ever walked the face of the earth. You get arrested for murder. So, do you call your lawyer? No. You tell the cops everything.”

  “Because I had nothing to hide.”

  “Why do you have nothing to hide?”

  “Because I didn’t do anything.”

  “And you know that an innocent person could never be convicted of anything. Couldn’t happen. It would offend your romantic ideas of right and wrong.”

  “I didn’t think this would happen.”

  “You didn’t think this would happen.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, that makes it all right then. It’s not your fault, because you didn’t expect it to happen.”

  Richard swung into lecture mode. “If a guy gets arrested for murder, there are basically two things he can do. One, he can shut the hell up and call his lawyer. That is the preferred method. That is the one all lawyers instruct their clients to employ. That is the one the cops are required to suggest. It’s shocking, what an unappealing option they make it out to be. It’s even more shocking that some morons fall for that line.”

  “Richard—”

  “But that’s method one. Two, the non-preferred method, the less-desirable method, the method where suspects invariably trip themselves up, is to try to talk their way out of it. To tell a story, which, if true, would mean they couldn’t possibly have done it.

  “Then there’s the third method—well, it’s not really the third method, no one’s ever used it, I think you’ve just invented it—the third method, which is so mind-numbingly stupid it defies comprehension, is to tell a story that, if true, not only means you could have done it, but proves you were the only person in the world who could have done it.” Richard shook his head. “I don’t know why more suspects haven’t come up with that strategy yet, but for some reason they haven’t. I’m really impressed with you for thinking of it.”