What It Was

TEN

At half past ten that night, a bloody and beaten man named Dallas Butler walked into the Third District police station at 16th and V, Northwest, went directly to the desk sergeant, and said, “I wanna confess to the murder of Robert Odum. I’m turning myself in.”

Sergeant Bill Herbst, black-haired and beefy, pointed to a row of chairs. “Have a seat over there and wait.”

A few minutes later, Vaughn came out from the offices and found Butler, a uniformed cop now standing beside him. Vaughn studied Butler, a young man with wide shoulders and thick hands. His lower lip was split as if filleted, and one eye was swollen shut. There was a raised welt on his left cheek, and the ear on the same side was as big and misshapen as a gourd.

Blood was splattered all over the front of his white shirt, and blood had crusted beneath his mouth.

“You are?”

“Dallas Butler.”

“I understand you want to talk about a homicide.”

n Butler.“Yes, sir.”

“It’s Detective Vaughn.” He put out his hand. Butler gripped it weakly. “C’mon back and get cleaned up.”

Vaughn helped Butler up and guided him back into the main offices, which were not traditional offices but rather an open room of desks. Across the room, Coco Watkins, Shay, and the rest of the girls were finalizing their processing by Passman and a couple of the junior members of his squad. Coco’s lawyer, Jake Tempchin, who serviced many in the D.C. underworld, had arrived and was talking loudly and gesturing broadly at Passman and other police, who were going about their paperwork and pointedly not looking at him.

“Dallas!” said Shay when she noticed her man crossing the room. Her hand went to her mouth, an involuntary shock response at seeing Butler in his woeful condition.

“Shut up, girl,” said Coco.

Butler glanced over at his lady friend, made no acknowledgment, then lowered his head and kept walking. But Vaughn had caught the connection.

Butler was put into one of the interview rooms, which held a scarred table-and-chairs arrangement. Beside one chair a leg iron had been bolted to the floor, and on the table were an ashtray, a tape recorder, and a yellow legal pad. Vaughn sent in Officer Anne Honn, blond and womanly, who was the unofficial station house nurse and the object of much attention from her male coworkers. She commenced to working on Butler with alcohol swabs and antiseptics. Honn told Vaughn that Butler needed to go to a hospital, that at the very least his lip was going to need stitches. Vaughn agreed with her assessment, adding that it would have to wait. He turned to Butler.

“Your name is really Dallas?”

“Says Leonard on my birth certificate.”

“I’ll be back in a few,” said Vaughn. “You need water?”

“I’d rather have a soda.”

“Okay.” Vaughn lifted his deck of cigarettes from his inside pocket and dropped them on the table, along with a pack of matches. He never left his lighter in these rooms.

Butler eyed Vaughn’s L amp;Ms with disappointment. “Can I get a menthol?”

“I’ll give it a try.”

Vaughn exited the room. He got Passman’s attention, took him aside, and learned that Coco and the others would spend the night in jail, then be arraigned, bailed by Tempchin via a bondsman, and bounced the following day. In all probability the laborious and useless process would end in a fine. Passman asked Shay if she would speak with Detective Vaughn, but she refused.

Vaughn returned to his desk. He ran Butler’s name through the card system and made some phone calls, the first to the Absconding Unit, the last to Lorton Reformatory. All of that took an hour. On the way back to the interview room he bought a Nehi from a machine and hit up a young black detective, Charles Davis, for a couple of Newports.

He s si a youngwent back into the room, sat across the table from Butler, put down the orange soda, and rolled two Newports in his direction. Butler picked one up and fitted it carefully into the corner of his mouth. Vaughn readied an L amp;M, produced his lighter, put fire to Butler’s cigarette, and fired up his own. He let the nicotine hit his lungs and exhaled a long stream of satisfaction over the table. Butler closed his eyes dreamily as he dragged on his smoke.

Vaughn simultaneously pressed two buttons, play and record, on the machine, and stated the date and time.

“Let’s begin.”

“I’m ready.”

“Dallas is an unusual street name.”

“It’s my nickname. My mother’s been a Cowboys fan since nineteen sixty. I’m the same way.”

“You from here?”

“Straight D.C.”

“But you don’t root for the Redskins.”

“Hail to Old Dixie? Please. I can’t root for ’em.”

There were many black residents of the Washington area who supported the Cowboys. The Redskins, under previous owner George Preston Marshall, were the last team to integrate in the NFL. Some locals would never forget.

“You’re the Leonard Butler who busted out of Lorton on April nineteenth, correct?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lotta people been looking for you, Dallas.”

“Here I am.”

“And now you want to confess to the murder of Bobby Odum.”

“Robert Odum, yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“On account of I killed him.”

“What was your motive?”

“I just didn’t like the man.”

“Must have been a strong dislike.”

“It was.”

“Where’d he live again?”

Butler gave Vaughn the correct address of Odum’s building and added, “Second floor.”

“How’d you get the better of him? I mean, you got some size on you, Dallas. But Odum had to be what, six-three or — four?”

“Bobby? You could put him in your pocket.”

“Wasn’t too sporting of you to shoot him in the back.”

“It w se="g oas the back of the head. Twice.”

“Thirty-Eight, right?”

“Twenty-Two, Colt Woodsman.”

“That particular gun makes you a contract man.”

“If the shoe fits,” said Butler, “you got to put it on.”

“I don’t think so,” said Vaughn.

They stopped speaking for a while and enjoyed their cigarettes. The smoke hung thick in the small space. It irritated their eyes and nose hairs, but they smoked on. Butler dragged deeply on his Newport and added to the cloud in the room.

“Back to Odum…” said Vaughn.

“Right.”

“I’m on the old side, case you haven’t noticed,” said Vaughn. “Been at this a long while. Can’t even tell you how many times I’ve sat in rooms like this one, talking to murderers. Some of them acted on impulse, or out of rage or jealousy. Some of them planned their deed well in advance. Different reasons and motives, but they all had one thing in common. They had the capacity to pull the trigger or twist the knife. What I mean is, they could kill. You? You don’t have that thing in you, young man.”

“No?”

“There’s nothing in your sheet to suggest it. No violence. Even the crime that got you your sixteen. Armed robbery? Shit, you weren’t even armed. Your accomplice had the gun.”

“You get inside those walls, you learn.”

“It’s not in your eyes.” Vaughn hit his cigarette one last time and crushed the cherry. “That day you robbed the market. What were you up on, some kinda dope?”

Butler shook his head and spoke softly. “Swiss Colony wine.”

“Took a couple a fifths of Bali Hai to jack up your courage, didn’t it, Dallas? Didn’t it?”

Butler looked away.

“You didn’t kill anyone,” said Vaughn.

“Wanna speak to an attorney.”

“I already know that Red Jones murdered Odum. Who beat your ass and sent you in here to confess? Was it Jones?”

Butler crossed his arms. His cigarette had burned down to the filter. “Send me back to Lorton. I don’t even like it out here no more.”

“First you need to tell me who did this to you.”

“I can’t, man.”

“Why not?”

“My mother.”

Vaughn leaned forward. n leaneward. “Tell me about it.”

“They threatened to do my mom if I didn’t turn myself in.”

“Jones?”

“And his partner.”

“Little man with gold teeth.”

“Alfonzo Jefferson.”

Vaughn pulled a pen from his jacket and wrote the name down on a pad. “Does your mother have someone she can live with until we can get these guys off the street?”

Butler nodded. “My sister stays over in Maryland with her husband and kids.”

“I’ll send someone to your mom’s place. We’ll tell her to move to your sister’s for a while.”

“My brother-in-law’s not gonna like that,” said Butler. But he gave Vaughn his mother’s address.

“They worked you over pretty good,” said Vaughn.

“It was mostly Fonzo.”

“Why’d he have to do you like that?”

“Had to got nothin to do with it.” Butler lit his second cigarette off the one still burning.

“Where can I find those two?”

“I don’t know. I was supposed to meet with, you know, this girl I see. I went to the spot, and they rolled up on me instead. Took me into an alley.”

“Rolled up in what?”

“Gold deuce-and-a-quarter with skirts. Nice-lookin car… a sixty-eight.”

“Hard or soft top?”

“Hard.”

Vaughn wrote this down. “The girl is the one out in the office with the mole on her face. That’s how you got involved in all this?”

“Shay,” said Butler. “Nice little gal.”

“She looks it.”

“Don’t be rough on her, man. She didn’t know. Red told me so hisself.”

“I’m not looking to add to her problems.”

“She ain’t had no problem with me.”

“No?”

“I hit that thing right.” Butler smiled reflectively. “She got some good pussy on her, man.”

“It’s all good when it’s young.” Vaughn got up out of his chair. “You need some medical attention before they put you back. I’ll just get that going for you. Get you some more cigarettes, too.”

“Y’all talk to my mother,” said Butler, “please don’t tell her I got beat. I don’t want the old girl to worry.”

“Not a problem.”

Vaughn left the room and closed the door behind him. Passman was still working, but Coco, the ladies, and their lawyer were gone. Vaughn gave some instructions to Officer Anne Honn regarding Butler’s treatment and his mother. He then went to his desk, had a seat, picked up his phone, and got Derek Strange at his apartment. He told Strange what he’d seen in Coco’s bedroom, and the window of opportunity that existed, most likely, for just one night. He described the layout of the building and its front door.

Vaughn then phoned Olga. He told her he loved her. He told her he had paperwork to do and not to wait up.

Out in the lot, he got into his Monaco and headed uptown. Vaughn stopped at the Woodnar on 16th Street, past the lion bridge, and went up to Linda Allen’s apartment.

“How about a drink for an old friend?” said Vaughn when Linda opened her door.

She put a June Christy record on the console stereo and fixed a couple of cocktails. They had some laughs and fucked like animals in her bed.