Crime & Punishment Pt. 03

Philip Sloane was a short fat man in his sixties, who was as of eleven days ago the chief investigator of the Van Patten County DA, in other words he worked for me. He was my first appointment. He had no law enforcement back ground at all. He was a PI not a cop until about ten years ago when he took a part time position with my predecessor. We had worked together on a number of cases and I knew he was the best I had. He had no political connections but then I did not have to worry about the politics.

"Took off his head and his hands, makes identification difficult but not impossible. From the amount of blood, he was alive when they cut off his head," Phil said.

I could tell they were all watching me. There was Brandt, Sloane and the three other sheriff's deputies. I just nodded my head. I wasn't getting sick if that is what they expected.

"I had Brandt give the State Police a call and give them a set of bad directions so we would have time to look things over first. We took pictures of everything," Phil said then he reached down and picked up one of the handless arms.

"He's got needle tracks on both arms and his tats say he's a Hell's Angel. We should have no trouble identifying him."

The corpse was wearing a white tee-shirt or what use to be white and a pair of black leather pants.

"No jacket?" I asked.

"No. Either they wanted a trophy or are using it to send a message. I'd guess the latter," Phil said.

"You think drugs?"

"I suspect so, probably a fight over the shipments up to Vermont and New Hampshire."

The drug route to Vermont went through the Capital District of New York. Van Patten wasn't usually involved, but this was clearly where someone decided to make a statement and I had, therefore, caught the black queen. The reality is that the headless corpse would make a big splash with the press, but was unlikely to get much attention from the State Police. The State Crime lab was the best, but the State Troopers were like the hats they wore, more cowboys in uniform then police. Unfortunately we would need tremendous luck to solve this crime with the resources we had. It would be solved eventually when someone needed to trade information to get out from under another charge. That would probably take years. In the meantime, since this happened on my watch, I would be held responsible and what little chance I had in the next election would be gone.

I looked at those around me and knew that they were thinking the same thing. I had lost a lot of staff since taking over. Those that were not already gone were planning on leaving. This horrendous homicide was just another weight for me to carry.

Without Laura I was alone. Steven my only real friend was off doing a high profile murder case down in Westchester County. Looking around, I knew it was now that I needed to prove I could lead.

"My Dad used to say that God never sends us a problem unless he feels we're ready for it. So let's do everything we can and leave the rest to God," I said. It must have been the right thing because I saw determined smiles all around. As I left the State Police showed up. Let them just collect the evidence and not cock it up I prayed.

__________________________________

Katrina Gomez was acting as my secretary. Two weeks before she had been the low person in the office hierarchy, but that was before the mass exodus. I could not blame the staff-most were following what they deemed their political best interests. Katrina buzzed me that Phil Sloane was here. Phil came in carrying a stack of folders.

"Well we know our victim and have a good idea who killed him," he said setting down the folders on the oversized desk I now had as acting DA.

"Good afternoon Phil, nice to see you too," I said, he just waived a hand.

"We ain't got time for small talk. We got vultures to catch."

He then explained that the dead man was Ricky St. Simons an ex Hell's Angel. Ricky ran a string of women mostly ex-prostitutes who cleaned up well enough to pass for housewives. A deal with a local used car lot gave them access to a supply of minivans. Once or twice a week they made a run to Vermont and unloaded a shipment of Heroin.

"That's what we found in those tracks, he had: heroin," Phil said.

"So the victim is a heroin dealer?"

"No he's just the transport. The dealers are these guys."

From the stack of folders he took files on a half dozen individuals that made up the northern contingent of a black biker gang, the Vultures. They operated from New York City to Albany and were using Ricky to go the final distance into Vermont."

"It seems there was a falling out all around," Phil said

"So we have our victim and our suspects, but no case."

"Not yet, but we do have this," he said pushing the last folder across the desk to me.

The murder weapon was a machete, and the victim had lost his head while still alive. It was a weapon that had been used before, twice in NYC, but in neither case had the head been severed; however, it left what the experts considered very distinctive tool marks."

"They can identify the weapon?" I asked.

"That is what the State boys say. If we can find it!" Phil had a big grin as he said this. I could see he envisioned the trouble our finding something, that if they were stupid enough to keep it, would be well hidden. Still it was an opportunity.

One week later, I was sitting in a bare, windowless room, little bigger than a closet. Across the small table was Kathy Lumous her big brown eyes were fixed on me and not in a nice way. I had snatched her and her youngest son, a boy of two, from the corridor outside the Department of Social Services office. We were just down the hall from the DSS office where she had just registered for her benefits and met with the employment counselor. The Sheriff's Office was responsible for the security to the DSS. Brandt worked it out to get our guys into position so we could make the grab unobserved. Kathy's older son was almost five and in the local charter preschool. She had lily white skin and blond hair which made those dark eyes of hers all the more intense.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked the hostility showing in her voice.

She was pretty, but not beautiful. Her main attributes were those eyes and her skinny body. Percy Jackson aka P Jack but known to his intimates as PJ liked his pussy thin and white. Kathy was his northern squeeze, he had another in NYC same complexion but three kids. Kathy's two were nice brown babies. Officially they had no designated fathers, but Percy was not known to let his women loose until he was done with them. So there was strong suspicion that these boys and the three down south were Percy's.

"Miss Lumous, I am Patrick Sullivan, DA of Van Patten County."

She sniffed at this. She was putting up a tough front, but I was counting on her being smart.

"So Mr. DA what do you want?"

"Some information, just the answers to two questions."

"Do I look stupid to you?"

"No, in fact I'm hoping you will be very smart."

"Really!"

"You see I'm hoping to avoid prosecuting such a lovely young woman for welfare fraud and taking away a mother from her children."

She only smiled at this.

"You got nothing and I know it. They just brought me in because I run my five years and now my benefits are getting reduced. The Lady says I should get a job, that they will help me with my daycare and carfare. But I'm thinking that taking care of two kids is a full-time job."

She was smug, but I had her, she just didn't know it yet.

"Not so full-time. You have been going to school full-time for your nursing degree. Odd you have not reported that since Social Services would help with the daycare and the carfare for your education. Of course you don't need carfare since you have a two year old Chevy and it might be hard to explain where the tuition and book money came from. I hear St. Rose College is pretty expensive."

"My Mom helps me."

"Except she died a year ago, but then anyone looking at her Pioneer Savings Bank account wouldn't know that," I said passing her the bank records.

"Nobody prosecutes for this kind of thing. I'm just improving myself, trying to get off welfare. The system is just stupid- it doesn't give you a chance to get out."

She was right. Van Patten's chief trial counsel until his untimely death was Tom Maitland. His ex-wife Beth worked in County DSS and was always complaining that the DA didn't prosecute welfare fraud. Trouble is outside the big cities there is almost no major fraud in the system. The locals call this area smallbany since everyone knows everyone else. Fraud, when it occurs, is small time. Someone a little slow to report a job or a new living arrangement. The DA's office had an arbitrary limit. No prosecutions under three thousand dollars. That eliminated all but the rare case and we proceeded to work on what we perceived to be the important crimes.

"Well that was the case, but I'm making changes. I have you for failing to report assets, that is, a late model car and cash going in and out of this bank account. Are you willing to gamble that you can beat the charges?"

She looked at me hard.

"We being recorded?"

"No, do I look stupid? I just forcibly grabbed a woman and her child, how do you think that makes me look."

"Ok so what are we doing?"

"Two questions. The first is two weeks ago Saturday night who was P Jack hanging with? I figure you are his alibi and, therefore, know who he was actually with."

"No. I don't roll on PJ."

"Didn't ask you to. Just need to know who he was with. Between you and me, this goes no further since no one knows you are here with me."

"Ok." she said and I passed her a yellow legal pad and a pencil."

She wrote down the names, and pushed the pad back to me.

"Last question," I said looking over the names.

"Who has the machete?"

She hesitated a long moment then circled a name and slapped the pencil down on the table.

Standing she said "We done now?"

"Yes," I replied. I got up, went to the door and knocked, and Brandt opened it and when the coast was clear let her out. He gave me a look and I could only smile. We had the first piece.

"This one," I said pointing at the list of names to the one in the circle. "We follow him everywhere he goes."

_________________________________________________

Bella was a persistent woman. She kept on me to the point I wanted to strangle her, but I thought I had myself under control enough to handle what she threw at me. Naïve is the word for what I was. The joint session had started normally with Laura talking as usual. The private one-on- one with Bella and me at 10:00 a.m. went well. She threw a lot at me but I managed to duck and block it all.

Suddenly she turned on Laura like a cobra.

"What exactly do you mean that you regret what you did with Frank Patterson?" Bella asked with a sharp tone that had not been there before.

"Well that I, you know..." Laura stumbled uncertain what to say. Myself, I had always been curious as to what my wife did in Paterson's bedroom, but I was too much the coward to ask. Bella had none of my inhibitions. As I watched in horror and with growing disgust, Bella began to pry the details from Laura. She would accept no euphemisms. The more Laura tried to evade, the more Bella zeroed in. I will admit sympathy for my wife, as much as I hate what she did, it was clear that, however enjoyable the experience might have been at the time, now it was a deep abiding wound.

Bella went on from there to expose Laura's sexual history prior to our marriage. She never used the words, but she implied Laura was a common slut. A picture of Laura began to emerge. She was not who I though she was. The woman I knew was sure confident and a little condescending. This Laura was insecure. She was unsure of her looks and felt men only wanted her for sex. It was shocking, but I believed it because the Laura I thought I knew would never admit to being less than in control.

Laura's face was covered in a sheet of tears. It had always amazed me how her nose ran like a faucet when she was deeply upset. Laura was huddled in her chair, tears running down to drip from her chin and her nose, snot running down over her lips- there were not enough tissues in the world to contain the flow. After what seemed like an eternity it was done, I had stopped listening, it was too painful. When I looked at my watch it was 1:30 p.m. I had missed my train.

"No problem. Laura can't drive herself back north in her condition anyway. You will need to drive," Bella said as light and cheerful as if we had been discussing gardening for the last one-hundred-twenty minutes.

As I helped Laura up and out, Bella gave a cheery, "See you two next week."

Laura eyes searched mine, at one point I saw fear in them. I am sure mine were, at worst, showing my confusion. This was her counselor and I had no idea why Bella had so thoroughly crushed and humiliated Laura.

It took some time to find Laura's car in the parking garage that was two streets over. I got her into the passenger side of the BMW convertible that I knew so well. I drove a five year old Honda Civic that Laura had purchased for me new. Her eighty thousand dollar sports car we bought three years back when we moved to Albany, a kind of going away present for both of us, although I never drove it preferring the Honda. I guess I am not what is considered a macho man, I hate cars.

As a kid growing up in a middle class Brooklyn neighborhood no one had a car, for one thing we had no place to park them. Our lives revolved around subways and busses.

The BMW was almost paid for. She loved this stupid car I thought as I helped her into it. I did not want Laura's car, I thought about trying to deprive her of it, but it was just too expensive to maintain and I hated to even look at it. To her it was a status symbol. It said that she was an important lawyer. On some level the car pissed me off. Now I knew it was more than a status object it was a crutch for her week self-esteem.

The drive back to Albany was quiet. I had trouble in the first part getting out of the City, for someone born and raised there I never drove there. I was in sticker shock for the parking fee which was nearly as much as my round-trip train ticket. Laura was curled up almost comatose in the passenger seat. About Newburg she began quietly to sob. I don't know why but I put my hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze. This brought on a crying fit.

"Laura please it's over now. Please sit up and stop crying."

"You don't know how I miss touching you. It sounds so stupid, but sometimes I just need to touch you," she said.

I had no come back to that.

"I miss the way you looked at me. I know you hate me now and don't even want to see me, but I miss you so much," she said, followed by more tears and the sobs were no longer quiet.

When we reached Selkirk I asked her where I was taking her, that's how I found out she was staying with Susan and Steven or more accurately in Susan's house that she shared with Steven. However, he was not currently in residence being out of town defending a spouse who had clearly killed her husband.

When we reached Becher Road in Altamont, the pleasant times we use to have taking this drive came back to me. When I saw that the long drive up the little hill from the road to Susan's house was now paved I realized it had been some time since I visited here. It had been an old farm house once, a dinky little thing, now it was a six bedroom house with a free standing four bay garage and a rustic barn out back that they intended one day to turn into an office when Susan started having babies and Steven would become a stay-at-home Dad, working part-time out of the house. I wondered how that plan now squared with his sudden notoriety as a defense counsel.

I pulled the Beemer to a stop at the garage.

Laura turned to me and said, "I never loved anyone before you. I am so sorry. You probably will never forgive me, but please try to remember the good times we had." Then she raced from the car over the flag stone walk, over the big farmhouse porch, and into the house. I got out closed the doors on the car as I did Susan came out of the house. The time was a little before four in the afternoon and I was surprised to see her home so early. She came down the porch steps to stand arms across her chest glaring at me. She wore jeans and a beat up Fordham University sweatshirt that must have been Stevens. She was still the most beautiful woman around.

"You proud of yourself Pat?" she said.

"Wasn't me, was the damn counselor."

"I see-you had nothing to do with this. You just get to go around acting like a child and nothing is your fault," Susan said.

There were nasty things I could have said back to her about her own conduct, but I bit my tongue. "Please Susan stay out of this."

"How can I? When two people that I love are being destroyed over nonsense."

"Isn't nonsense to me," I replied.

"So sure of yourself so strong. No tolerance for us weak individuals. I hope someday you and Steven learn what it is to be human." As she said that she turned and went back into the house.

I called a cab on my cell phone as I walked down to the road. It took forty minutes to arrive and I had time to curse Bella Moskowitz, Roxanne Clearmont and Angela Zink and all the other allegedly good women who I am convinced secretly hate men and make our lives miserable. I also had time to ponder Susan's last remark. What did it mean?

I did not have Night Court that night; call it the one privilege of my new position.

About midnight I got a call from Steven.

"Hi Pat, I would ask how things are going, but I know," he said.

"Yea. What did Susan tell you?"

"Well you are impossible, immature, insensitive, and probable insane and those are just the i-words. I got well over two hours of your faults on the phone," he said.

"Sorry, not your problem, I know you are on trial and don't need to hear about my shit."

"Not your fault either, besides it was a needed break."

"So how's it going?" I asked

"Could be better," Steven answered.

"That bad."

"Other side is not making many mistakes. She is good I will give her that."

"Just a her," I said.

Steven laughed and said, "She is the one that breaks the rule."

As a rule women make mediocre trial attorneys at best, something in the chromosomes I guess. They lean toward cooperation not conflict and a trial is just a fight, the dirtier and meaner you can play it the better. Give away nothing and hit from behind if you can. Trials don't appeal to most women, but there are exceptions.

"I just wish I was not playing with a handicap," he said.

"Oh, what's that?" I asked.

Steven hesitated then in a very low voice, he said. "The client is innocent."

I did not respond for a moment then all I could think of to say was "sorry."

"Not your fault these things happen," he said.

"Things all right between you and Susan," I asked.

"Ok why you asking."

"Well she said something funny when I saw her about you and me not being human," I said.

There was a long pause and then he said." I think she is having problems handling my success. Don't know for sure, but it's a hunch. Well I'll probably lose this one and things will go back to normal," he said.

We ended the call promising to meet when he got back for a drink.

Jenny Trudeu was a 'skinny ass white ho' or so she told me the first time we met.

We met because she had been arrested for soliciting, but the bust was questionable.

"I may be just a ho, Mr. Sullivan, but I know a cop when I see one. This charge is bullshit."

It was and I let it go and moved on. She was grateful then and I hoped she still was.

"So what you want Mr. Bigshot DA? Need my professional service. I hear things ain't good at home," she said.