Night Kills

26

"Mr. Brolan?"

"Yes."

"I'm Tom Dodge with the Minneapolis Police Department." The men shook hands.

"Is there somewhere we could go to talk for a little while?"

"Sure."

"It shouldn't take long. In case you've got another appointment, that is."

"Right down here."

Brolan led the detective down a short corridor to where three small conference rooms were housed. It was lunchtime, and two of them were open. In the third two art directors were projecting a slide show and making notes on which slides had to be replaced. These were the two resident agency wise guys.

They could turn anything into dark humour. In general they were very funny, and all the funnier because they were often the butt of their own jokes.

Brolan opened the door on conference room number two, flipped on the overhead light, and then stepped back for Dodge to precede him.

"I can get us some coffee if you'd like a cup," Brolan said.

He was well aware that his voice was about half an octave higher than usual. He was also aware that beneath his undershirt was a glaze of cold sweat

"No, thanks," Dodge said. "Coffee makes me want to smoke cigarettes. My kids convinced me to give up smoking about six months ago. I still haven't been able to go back to coffee." He glanced around the room. "This is a very nice place. I haven't seen this much mahogany since the days when my grandfather had his law offices."

"So, you come from a tradition of law?"

Dodge shrugged. He was a trim man with short hair going grey. His blue blazer, white button-down shirt, Oxford-stripe red tie, and grey flannel slacks had the air of a uniform. He looked fifty, perhaps, and very bright and very composed. He also looked enigmatic. His dark eyes and somewhat tight mouth gave no indication of what he might be thinking. Brolan imagined this was damned useful to a cop. "I guess I never thought of it that way before. The tradition of law, I mean."

"You work out of downtown?" Brolan asked. He was aware he was chattering. He didn't know how to not chatter.

"Yes. Criminal investigation division. Homicide."

"Really? Homicide?"

Dodge smiled slightly. "Homicide. Really."

"And this has something to do with me?" Brolan's voice was going up again.

"Would you care to sit down, Mr. Brolan?" He smiled again. "I guess I shouldn't be asking you to have a seat in your own place but-"

"Of course," Brolan said. "Let's sit down right now."

They sat down. At one end of the conference room was a folding table loaded down with video playing equipment. Somebody in production was taking inventory of all the electronic stuff the agency owned. Presumably it would all be traded in on better stuff.

"Have you heard the news this morning?" Dodge asked.

"Afraid I haven't."

"There was a murder last night. A prostitute."

"I see." Brolan had been dreading the man's mentioning a freezer and a house in the suburbs. What was this all about?

"Do you ever spend time with prostitutes, Mr. Brolan?"

"I want to be as co-operative as possible, Officer Dodge."

"Sergeant Inspector Dodge. That's my official tide anyway."

"Thank you." He gulped some air. "I want to be as cooperative as I can be."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Brolan."

"But I don't know why you'd ask me a question like that."

"About visiting prostitutes?"

"Yes."

"I didn't mean to offend you, Mr. Brolan. There was a good reason for me to ask you that."

"Really?"

"Really. One of your cuff links was found at the crime scene."

"My cufflink. My God."

From his pocket, Dodge took a small oval piece of platinum inside a clear plastic evidence bag. From where he sat Brolan recognized the cuff link.

Dodge held it up. "Is this yours?"

"Yes."

"You don't need to look at it more closely?"

"No. I can see my initials inscribed from here. The cuff links are real platinum. My ex-wife had them made for me at Enrique's in St. Paul."

"Enrique's was one of the jewellery stores we called in trying to track this down. They gave us your name."

"I see."

Dodge then told him about the killing. The woman had been stabbed in the eye then savagely cut up. Dodge described the area where the body had been dumped out. "Have you been in or around there lately?"

"No."

"Think a moment. Think back a month or two. Are you sure you haven't been in or around that area?"

He thought a moment. "No."

"When was the last time your wore these particular cuff links?"

"I'm not sure. Months at least. Maybe years."

"And being in that vicinity?"

"Maybe never. I just wouldn't have any reason to be out there."

"So, you weren't out there last night?"

"No. Absolutely not."

The detective sort of nodded. Brolan still couldn't read anything on the man's face. He sat there in his cold sweat, hoping his hands weren't twitching. It was like being afraid of farting at a fancy dinner party. You knew you were a weird and twisted wretch; you just didn't want other people to know that.

"Here's a photograph of her," the detective said, reaching inside his sport coat pocket and taking out a small photo and handing it over.

Brolan realized now that the detective did not necessarily believe his denials. No, I don't know any prostitutes. No I don't go out to that area ever. Fine, Mr. Brolan, why don't you take a look at this photo anyway?

Brolan took the photo and studied it. A fleshy woman in a cheap green dress stood by a ten-year-old Chevrolet on a sunny spring morning in front of a crumbling three-storey apartment house. She gave you the impression that these were her Sunday clothes and that she'd just come from church. Her cheeky, middle-aged face also gave the impression of a kind of weary sorrow. Even at a distance the smile revealed dentures, and the hair revealed an unnatural henna tint, and the belly and hips revealed an iron girdle. She might have been somebody's slightly boozy maiden aunt except for a certain coarseness around the mouth, a coarseness put there (or so Brolan imagined in his somewhat moralistic way) by too much loveless sex. It was a mouth that had told and laughed at too many feeble dirty jokes for the pleasure of too many feeble johns.

"Not familiar?" the detective asked as Brolan handed the photo back.

"Afraid not."

The detective put the photo away. "Are you married, Mr. Brolan?"

"Divorced."

"Lady friends?"

"I wish I could say yes. I'm afraid my lady friend and I are splitting up."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks."

"So, you don't have any idea how your cuff link could have gotten there?"

"No."

"And you keep your cuff links where?"

"In a small leather box with some other stuff-tie bars and things like that-in a bureau drawer in my home."

"You live alone?"

"Yes."

"Does anybody else have access to your place?"

"By access, you mean, do they have a key?"

"Right."

"No. I'm the only one with a key."

"Have you had any suspicion lately that somebody might have broken in and taken things?"

"No."

"So, you can't account for this cuff link being where we found it?"

Brolan tried a smile. "Obviously I wish I could." He hesitated. "I take it, this cuff link makes me a suspect."

"Not necessarily, Mr. Brolan. It could be a freak coincidence. Maybe somebody did break into your home recently, and you just weren't aware of it."

"That happens?"

"Certainly. Some thieves don't call any attention to themselves. They come in and take very specific things. Jewellery, for instance. The owner may not notice that anything is missing for several days. This gives the thieves a real advantage. They're way down the road before we even know that they took anything."

"So, this thief could have taken my cuff links and-what? Dropped them at the scene of the crime on purpose?"

"Perhaps. At this point we can't be sure. All we know is that, for some reason, one of your cuff links was found at a murder scene."

"And somebody could have dropped it there on purpose or by accident?"

"Right."

"And that could have been a thief. Or-me."

"Right."

"I wasn't there," Brolan said. "I wasn't there, and I don't know the woman. Never saw her before. I want to be emphatic about that."

"I can see that, Mr. Brolan."

"And I certainly don't want to be a suspect in a murder case."

"Nobody does, Mr. Brolan," the detective said. He sat up on the edge of the chair, obviously getting ready to leave. "But if you should remember anything, I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me. I'll leave you my card."

"Remember anything?"

The detective stood up-as did Brolan-and extended his hand. As they shook, the detective said, "Remember anything you might have forgotten to tell me." He stared directly into Brolan's eyes. "Maybe later on you'll recall that you actually met the woman somewhere previously. Maybe you just didn't recognize this particular picture. That happens sometimes."

"But I don't know her, and I'm sure of that."

"Well," the detective said, "just in case anything like that does come up, please feel free to give me a call."

He handed Brolan a small white card with very unfancy typeset information on it.

Brolan nodded and took the card and right then realized that somebody had very crudely-but very effectively-framed him for murder for a second time.

"Talk to you again, Mr. Brolan," the detective said as he was leaving.