Dog Tags

CHAPTER 29

FOR ME, A MURDER CASE OFFICIALLY BEGINS WHEN I GO TO THE SCENE. It gives me a feel, a context, for what happened, and I find that invaluable. It’s the difference between sitting on the fifty-yard line at a football game and reading a newspaper account of the same game.

When Laurie was my full-time investigator, we would go to the scene together. She would view it through the eyes of a trained detective and was able to provide insights that I could never come up with on my own.

This time Laurie asks if she can go along, and I’m delighted to have her. It feels like old times, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

We go there at midnight, since that’s when the murder took place. It gives us more of a feel for what happened, for how it might have looked to both the participants in the crime and the witnesses to it.

As we’re driving toward the club, I look over at Laurie in the passenger seat and see that she is struggling to keep her eyes open. It’s evidence of the lingering effects of her injury; she still tires far more easily than she used to.

When I see her eyes open, I ask, “You okay?”

“I’m completely fine,” she says. “Why?” She asks the question in a challenging way, not wanting to admit to any weaknesses.

“You just seem tired, and it’s late,” I say.

“I’m not tired, and it’s not late,” she says.

I nod. “Right. You’re fresh and it’s no wonder, since it’s so early. But you said last week, and I quote, ‘I need to start listening to the doctor and stop pushing myself.’”

“Do you remember every word of every conversation you’ve ever had?” she asks.

I smile. “It’s a gift.” That’s actually the truth; for some reason words stick in my mind. I’m verbal rather than visual. I could go to the Grand Canyon and forget what it looked like, but I would remember every word I heard while I was there.

I know I shouldn’t push this, but my concern for Laurie overwhelms my self-preservation instinct. “I just don’t want you to overdo it.”

“Riding in a car is overdoing it?”

I can tell she’s really annoyed, so I back down, belatedly but in characteristic fashion. “Nope. It’s definitely not overdoing it. If anything, it’s underdoing it. Way under.”

She still has a slight frown on her face, so I hold up my hand, palm down, near the inside roof of the car. “Overdoing it is up here.” I move my hand down toward the floor. “Your doing-it level is down here. Way, way under.”

We reach the Skybar on River Road and park across the street. The place is very active at this hour, with quite a few people going in and out, and the music from inside spills out onto the street.

I point to the front of the bar, just to the right of the door. “According to Billy, Erskine was standing there for more than an hour. A couple of witnesses confirmed that he was there, but they didn’t know for how long.”

“Where was Billy?” she asks.

I point across the street. “Over there. And Milo was by that tree to the left of the bar.”

“What were they waiting for?”

“An opportunity for Milo to take something,” I say.

“How did he know he’d have the chance?”

I shrug. “Billy said he didn’t know, but he was hopeful. He said, and I quote, ‘A slimeball like Erskine wouldn’t have been standing there for so long for his health. Something had to be going down.’”

She frowns. “He could have been meeting a date who was late showing up.”

I point down the street. “So Billy’s version is that a car drove slowly from that direction, and that Erskine saw him and started walking the other way. The car passed the bar and Erskine met him down there. Billy said the man parked near the corner and came back to meet Erskine.”

We walk to the place where Erskine and the man spoke, and where the murder took place. “Erskine wasn’t running away?” Laurie asks.

I shake my head. “No, it was obviously a prearranged meeting. Billy is positive that Erskine was waiting for this guy to show up.”

The trees and buildings combine to make it particularly dark at the spot of the murder, and I mention that to Laurie. “I’m sure it was by design,” she says. “Otherwise they would have met closer to the bar. Erskine clearly did not realize he had something to fear.”

“So he takes out the envelope, Billy gives Milo the signal, and he springs into action. Then the killer reaches into his inside jacket pocket, and Billy’s surprised to see that it’s a gun.”

“How did he see it?” she says.

“He says there was a gleam of light off the barrel.”

“You see much light here?”

I shake my head; that could be a problem at trial. “No, but it’s possible. It’s pretty cloudy tonight, maybe it was clear the night of the murder. I’ll check that out.”

“Let me check that,” she says.

I nod. “Great. Anyway, Billy says he thought the killer was taking out an envelope or something like that of his own, since bad guys don’t usually carry guns in that pocket.”

“Maybe Erskine thought he was there to make a trade,” she says.

“If it was a trade, he got the bad end of the deal. So Milo jumps into the picture and grabs the envelope out of the killer’s hand as Erskine’s hitting the ground. Billy gets there as the guy is trying to shoot Milo, who’s taking off down the street. Billy grabs the gun as it goes off, knees the guy in the groin, and the guy doubles over. Billy goes to Erskine, and in the meantime the killer jumps up and runs to his car before Billy can see him and react.”

“You ever get kneed in the groin?” she asks. “I would imagine that would slow you down.”

“I haven’t, and this is not the time for a reenactment. I take it you don’t believe Billy’s story?”

“I have my doubts,” she says. “But it’s going to be tough to prove. What about the witnesses?”

“A few came running when they heard the shot, but all they saw was Erskine lying there with Billy holding the gun. Nobody noticed the guy getting away, but they did see Milo running by them with the envelope in his mouth. Scared the shit out of them.”

“And they connected Milo to the shooting?” she asks.

“No, the cops did that once they knew Billy was involved. There were a couple of similar robberies in the general area the month before, and they put two and two together. They caught Milo a couple of hours later, without the envelope.”

After we’ve spent about twenty minutes on the scene, placing ourselves at both Billy’s and Erskine’s vantage points, we’ve learned all we’re going to learn. “Seen enough?” Laurie asks.

“I think so,” I say. I point to the bar, which is still going strong. “You want to go inside and have a drink?”

She shakes her head and smiles. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to overdo it.”

On the way home Laurie says, “Thanks for letting me come, Andy. It felt good.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “When I’m feeling down, there’s nothing like a murder scene to cheer me up. For some reason I don’t get the same emotional boost from robbery and assault scenes.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” she says.

“Yes, I do.”