Small Vices

Chapter 11

Trooper Tommy Miller had a blond crew cut and a thick neck and looked like he might have played tackle for Iowa. He came into my office wearing plainclothes, didn’t shut the door behind him, took a seat in one of my client chairs, and put one spit-shined cordovan shoe up on the edge of my desk.

“Captain Healy says I should talk with you.”

I got up and walked around my desk and past him and shut the door and turned around and walked back behind my desk and sat down.

“Healy tell you why?” I said.

“Something about that nigger that did the broad in Pemberton,” he said. “You’re trying to get him off.”

“Nicely put,” I said.

“You got no prayer, pal,” Miller said. “It was my case, and he did it.”

“I’ve read the transcript,” I said. “So I know what you testified. You got anything to add, stuff you knew but couldn’t prove, stuff no one asked you?”

“If I did, why would I talk to you?”

“Interest of justice?” I said.

Miller laughed.

“Sure thing,” he said.

“You got no eyewitness,” I said.

“He’s a known rapist. He’s got no alibi. We got two eyewitnesses saw him grab her. We got dirt from the heel of his right shoe with traces of fertilizer. Both match samples from the crime scene. You’re wasting your time and you sure as hell are wasting mine.”

“Coroner says she wasn’t raped,” I said. “Says there was vaginal bruising but no sign of penetration, no semen.”

“So he couldn’t get it up. Lot of rapists can’t get it up. Probably why he killed her.”

“Frustration?” I said.

“Sure.”

“What’d he strangle her with? Coroner says it wasn’t manual.”

“Some piece of her clothing, probably, what’s the difference. He did her.”

“You remember his name?” I said.

Miller started to open his mouth and stopped and frowned.

“Hey, pal. It was, what, year and a half ago? You think I get one case a year?”

“But you’re pretty sure he was black.”

“Ohhh,” Miller said. “That’s where we’re going, huh? Poor innocent guy got railroaded.”

“Did he?”

“You go down that road, pal, you’re going to have a lot of people mad at you. Including me.”

“I’ll try to control my breathing,” I said. “Who’s going to be mad besides you?”

“The broad’s father is Walton Henderson, for crissake. You think he’ll sit around and let you fucking bleeding-heart his daughter’s murderer out of jail?”

“You and Walton Henderson,” I said. “Pretty scary.”

“Scary enough, pal.”

Miller was still sitting with his foot up on my desk, leaning back in my chair, the off-hand tough guy approach that is so popular these days.

“How did you come up with Ellis Alves?” I said.

“You read the transcript; you know.”

“I know what the transcript says, I wanted to hear it from you.”

“Pemberton cops got a tip, anonymous letter, mailed from Boston.”

“With Alves’s name and address?”

“Yeah. Pemberton bucked it over to me. They ain’t used to much more than bad traffic, and I went in and busted him. Yanked his black ass right out of bed.”

“By yourself,” I said.

“I had troopers with me from our office and some Area B guys.”

“You get many letters like that on a case like this? Naming the suspect, giving you the address?”

“High-profile case, you get a lotta stuff.”

“Most of it good?”

“No, most of it’s bullshit. This one was good.”

“You got no idea who wrote the letter.”

“No.”

“Try to find out?”

“Find out?” Miller said. “Come on, asshole, gimme a break. It’s written on a computer on plain paper you can buy in any Staples. You know how many people got personal computers?”

“How many got them in Alves’s neighborhood?” I said.

“Who says it came from his neighborhood?”

“They knew his address.”

“I know your address. Don’t mean I live here.”

“Just a thought,” I said.

“Well, it’s a fucking stupid one.”

I leaned over my desk and shoved his foot off the edge of my desk. It made his chair come forward with a bump.

“Keep your feet off the furniture,” I said.

Miller stood up and leaned forward over the desk.

“You better just walk goddamned light around me, pal. I don’t much like it when outsiders come in and step all over one of my cases. You unnerstan? You keep pushing at this and something bad is going to happen.”

“You going to do the bad thing?” I said. “Or Walton Henderson? Or will it be you doing it because Walton Henderson told you to?”

Miller’s face, which was farm-boy pink to start with, turned a darker red.

“You sonova bitch,” he said. “You want to back that up?”

“By bopping you on the kisser?” I said. “It’s been a while since I thought backing things up mattered.”

It wasn’t quite true, but it sounded mature to me, and I went with it.

“You are making a bad mistake here, pal,” Miller said. “You are walking into a swamp.”

“Then I’ll probably run into you again,” I said and held his look, and did my best former cop dead-eyed look. We sat like that for a minute, then Miller said, “Shit,” and turned and walked out. He left the door open again.