The Poet (1995) Page 4

  "Why do you want to do that, Jack? Whyn't you let sleeping dogs lie?"

  "I've got to look, Captain. I'm not quoting from it. I just want to look at it. You get it now and I'll be done with it before the microfilm folks even get back from lunch. Nobody will know. Except you and me. And I'll remember it."

  Ten minutes later, Grolon handed me the file. It was as thin as the year-round residents phone book for Aspen. I don't know why but I had expected something thicker, heavier, as if the size of the investigative file bore some resemblance to the significance of the death.

  Inside on top was an envelope marked PHOTOS which I put to the side of the desk without opening. Next there was an autopsy report and several standard reports that were paper-clipped together.

  I had studied autopsy reports often enough to know that I could skip the pages of endless description of body glands, organs and general condition and go to the last pages, where conclusions were written. And there were no surprises here. Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. The word suicide was circled below it. Blood scans for commonly used drugs showed traces of dextromethorphan hydrobromide. Following this entry a lab tech's notes said "cough suppressant-glove box." It meant that other than a shot or two of cough syrup from a bottle kept in the car, my brother was stone cold sober when he put the gun in his mouth.

  The forensic analysis report contained a subreport labeled GSR, which I knew meant gunshot residue. It stated that a neutron activation analysis of leather gloves worn by the victim found particles of burned gunpowder on the right glove, indicating he had used that hand to fire the weapon. GSR and gas burns were also found in the victim's throat. The conclusion was that the barrel had been in Sean's mouth when the gun discharged.

  Next in the packet was an evidence inventory and I saw nothing unusual here. After this I found the witness statement. The witness was Park Ranger Stephen Pena, who was assigned to a one-ranger substation and information booth at Bear Lake.

  Witness stated he did not have a view of the parking area while working in the booth. At approx. 4:58 P.M. witness heard a muffled report he identified from experience as a gunshot. He identified the origin as the parking lot and immediately went to investigate the possibility of illegal hunting. At this time there was only one vehicle in the lot and through the partially fogged windows he saw the victim slumped back in the driver's seat. Witness ran to the vehicle but could not open the door because it was locked. Looking closely through the fogged windows he determined that the victim appeared to be deceased because of the massive damage to the rear of the head. Witness then returned to the park booth where he immediately notified authorities and his supervisors. He then returned to the victim's car to await the arrival of authorities.

  Witness states that the victim's vehicle was within his sight no more than five seconds after he heard the shot. The car was parked approx. 50 yards from the nearest forest cover or structure. It is believed by the witness to have been impossible for someone to have left the victim's car after the shooting and gotten to the cover without the witness seeing him.

  I returned the statement sheet to its place in the packet and glanced through the other reports. There was a page titled Case Report that detailed my brother's last day. He reported to work at 7:30 A.M., had lunch with Wexler at noon and signed out at 2 P.M. to go to the Stanley. He did not tell Wexler or anyone else whom he was going to see.

  Attempts by investigators to determine if Sean had actually gone to the Stanley were unsuccessful. All waitresses and busboys in the hotel's restaurant were interviewed and none recalled my brother.

  There was a one-page report in the file summarizing Scalari's interview with Sean's psychologist. Somehow, maybe through Riley, he had found out that Sean was seeing the Denver therapist. Dr. Colin Dorschner, according to Scalari's report, said Sean was suffering from acute depression brought about by job stress, in particular his failure to close the Lofton case. What was not contained in the interview summary was whether Scalari ever asked Dorschner if he had thought my brother was suicidal. I wondered if Scalari had even asked that question.

  The last sheaf of papers in the package was the investigating officer's final report. The last paragraph was Scalari's summary and conclusion.

  Based upon physical evidence and the eyewitness account of the death of Detective Sean McEvoy, I/O concludes that the victim died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after writing a message on the inside of the fogged windshield. The victim was known by colleagues, including I/O, and his wife and psychologist Colin Dorschner to be emotionally burdened by his unsuccessful efforts to clear by arrest the Dec. 19 homicide of Theresa Lofton (case no. 832). It is believed at this time that this disturbance may have led him to take his own life. DPD psychological consultant Dr. Armand Griggs said in an interview (2/22) that the message-Out of Space-Out of Time-written on the windshield could be considered a suicide-style farewell consistent with the victim's state of mind.

  At this time, there is no evidence conflicting with the conclusion of suicide.

  Submitted 2/24/I/O RJS D-II

  Clipping the reports back together, I realized there was only one thing left that I hadn't looked at.

  Grolon had decided to go to the cafeteria to pick up a sandwich to go. I was left alone in his office. Probably five minutes passed in stillness while I considered the envelope. I knew that if I looked at the photographs they would become the lasting image in my mind of my brother. I did not want that. But I also knew that I needed to see the photos to know for sure about his death, to help disperse any last doubts.

  I opened the envelope quickly so as to not change my mind. As I slid the stack of 8 x 10 color prints out, the first image that greeted me was an establishing shot. My brother's detective car, a white Chevy Caprice, alone at the end of the parking lot. I could see the ranger shack up a low hill from it. The lot had been freshly plowed, a four-foot embankment of snow around the edges.

  The next photo was a close-up of the windshield from the outside. The message was barely legible, as the steam had dissipated from the glass. But it was there and through the glass I could also see Sean. His head was snapped back, his jaw up. I went to the next photo and I was inside the car with him. Taken from the passenger side front, his whole body visible. Blood had worked its way like a thick necklace around his neck from the back and then down over the sweater. His heavy snow coat was open. There was spatter on the roof and back side window. The gun was on the seat next to his right thigh.

  The rest of the photos were mostly close-ups from various angles. But they did not have the effect on me I thought they would. The sterile lighting robbed my brother of his humanity. He looked like a mannequin. But I found nothing about them as upsetting as the fact that I had once more convinced myself that Sean had indeed taken his own life. I admitted to myself then that I had secretly come with a hope and that it was gone now.

  Grolon came back in then. He looked at me with curious eyes. I stood up and placed the file on his desk as he maneuvered around it to his seat. He opened a brown paper bag and removed a plastic-wrapped egg salad sandwich.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm fine."

  "You want half?"

  "No."

  "Well, how do you feel?"

  I smiled at the question because I had asked the same thing so many times. It must have thrown him off. He frowned.

  "See this?" I said, pointing to the scar on my face. "I got that for asking somebody that same thing once."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't be. I wasn't."

  5

  After viewing the file on my brother's death I wanted the details of the Theresa Lofton case. If I was going to write about what my brother did, I had to know what he knew. I had to understand what he had come to understand. Only this time Grolon couldn't help me. The active homicide files were kept under lock and Grolon would see more of a risk than a benefit in attempting to get the Lofton file for me.

  After I checked the CAPs squad r
oom and found it emptied for lunch, the first place I looked for Wexler was the Satire. It was a favored place for cops to eat-and drink-at lunch. I saw him there in one of the rear booths. The only problem was, he was with St. Louis. They didn't see me and I debated whether it would be better just to withdraw and try later to get to Wexler alone. But then Wexler's eyes stopped on me. I walked over. I could see by their ketchup-smeared plates that they had finished eating. Wexler had what looked like a Jim Beam and ice on the table in front of him.

  "Would ya look at this?" Wexler said good-naturedly.

  I slid into the wide booth next to St. Louis. I chose his side so I would be looking at Wexler.

  "What is this?" St. Louis mildly protested.

  "It's the press," I said. "Howzit going?"

  "Don't answer," St. Louis said quickly to Wexler. "He wants something he can't have."

  "Of course I do," I said. "What else is new?"

  "Nothing is new, Jack," Wexler said. "Is what Big Dog says true? You want something you can't have?"

  It was a dance. Friendly patter designed to ferret out the basic nut of information without specifically asking for it and confronting it. It went with the nicknames cops used. I had danced like this many times and I was good at it. They were finesse moves. Like practicing the three-man weave in high school basketball. Keep your eyes open for the ball, watch the other two men at once. I was always the finesse player. Sean was the strength. He was football. I was basketball.

  "Not exactly," I said. "But I am back on the job again, boys."

  "Oh, here we go," St. Louis whined. "Hold on to your hats."

  "So, what's happening on the Lofton case?" I asked Wexler, ignoring St. Louis.

  "Whoa there, Jack, are you talking to us as a reporter now?" Wexler asked.

  "I'm only talking to you. And that's right, as a reporter."

  "Then no comment on Lofton."

  "So the answer is nothing is happening."

  "I said no comment."

  "Look, I want to see what you've got. The case is almost three months old now. It's going into the dead case file soon if it isn't already there and you know it. I just want to see the file. I want to know what hooked Sean so deep."

  "You're forgetting something. Your brother was ruled a suicide. Case closed. It doesn't matter what hooked him about Lofton. Besides, it's not known as fact that it had anything to do with what he did. It's collateral at best. But we'll never know."

  "Cut the crap. I just saw the file on Sean." Wexler's eyebrows raised a subliminal amount, I thought. "It's all there. Sean was fucked up over this case. He was seeing a shrink, he was spending all of his time on it. So don't tell me we'll never know."

  "Look, kid, we-"

  "Did you ever call Sean that?" I interrupted.

  "What?"

  "Kid. Did you ever call him kid?" Wexler looked confused.

  "Nope."

  "Then don't call me it, either."

  Wexler raised his arms in a hands-off manner.

  "Why can't I see the file? You're not going anywhere with it."

  "Who says?"

  "I do. You're afraid of it, man. You saw what it did to Sean and you don't want it to happen to you. So the case is stuck in a drawer somewhere. It's got dust on it. I guarantee it."

  "You know, Jack, you're seriously full of shit. And if you weren't your brother's brother, I'd throw you outta here on your ass. You're getting me pissed. I don't like being pissed."

  "Yeah? Then imagine how I'm feeling. The thing of it is, I am his brother and I think that cuts me in."

  St. Louis gave a smirking type of laugh meant to belittle me.

  "Hey, Big Dog, isn't it about time you went out and watered a fire hydrant or something?" I said.

  Wexler burst out with the start of a laugh but quickly contained it. But St. Louis's face turned red.

  "Listen, you little fuck," he said. "I'll put you-"

  "All right, boys," Wexler intervened. "All right. Listen, Ray, why don't you go outside and have a smoke? Let me talk to Jackie, straighten him out, and I'll be out."

  I got out of the booth so St. Louis could slide out. He gave me the dead man's stare as he went by. I slid back in.

  "Drink up, Wex. No sense acting like there isn't any Beam on the table."

  Wexler grinned and took a pull from his glass.

  "You know, twins or not, you're a lot like your brother. You don't give up on things easy. And you can be a smart-ass. You get rid of that beard and the hippie hair and you could pass for him. You'd have to do something about that scar, too."

  "Look, what about the file?"

  "What about it?"

  "You owe it to him to let me see it."

  "I don't follow, Jack."

  "Yes, you do. I can't put it behind me until I've looked it all over. I'm just trying to understand."

  "You're also trying to write about it."

  "Writing does for me what you got in that glass does for you. If I can write about it, I can understand it. And I can put it in the ground. That's all I want to do."

  Wexler looked away from me and picked up the check the waitress had left. Then he downed the rest of his drink and slid out of the booth. Standing, he looked down at me and let out a heavy breath redolent of bourbon.

  "Come back to the office," he said. "I'll give you one hour."

  He held his finger up and repeated himself in case I was confused.

  "One hour."

  In the CAPs squad room I used the desk my brother had used. No one had taken it yet. Maybe it was a bad-luck desk now. Wexler was standing at a wall of file cabinets looking through an open drawer. St. Louis was nowhere to be seen, apparently choosing to have nothing to do with this. Wexler finally stepped away from the drawer with two thick files. He placed them in front of me.

  "This everything?"

  "Everything. You got an hour."

  "C'mon, there's five inches of paper here," I tried. "Let me take it home and I'll bring it-"

  "See, just like your brother. One hour, McEvoy. Set your watch, because those go back in the drawer in one hour. Make that fifty-nine minutes. You're wasting time."

  I stopped belaboring the point and opened the top file.

  Theresa Lofton had been a beautiful young woman who came to the university to study for an education degree. She wanted to be a first-grade teacher.

  She was in her first year and lived in a campus dorm. She carried a full curriculum as well as working part-time in the day care center at the university's married-housing dorm.

  Lofton was believed to have been abducted on or near the campus on a Wednesday, the day after classes ended for the Christmas break. Most students had already left for the holiday. Theresa was still in Denver for two reasons. She had her job; the day care center didn't close for the holidays until the end of the week. And there was also the problem of her car. She was waiting for a new clutch to be put into the old Beetle so she could make the drive home.

  Her abduction was not reported because her roommate and all her friends had already gone home for the holidays. No one knew she was missing. When she didn't show up for work at the day care center on Thursday morning, the manager thought she had simply gone home to Montana early, not completing the week because she wasn't due to return to the job after the Christmas break. It would not be the first time a student pulled this kind of stunt, especially once finals were over and the holiday break beckoned. The manager made no inquiry or report to authorities.

  Her body was found Friday morning in Washington Park. The investigators traced her last known movements back to noon on Wednesday when she called the mechanic from the day care center-he remembered children's voices in the background-and he told her the car was ready. She said she would pick it up after work, first stopping at the bank. She did neither. She said good-bye to the day care center manager at noon and went out the door. She was not seen alive again. Except, of course, by her killer.

  I only had to look at the photos in the file
to realize how the case could have grabbed Sean and put a leash around his heart. They were before-and-after photos. A portrait shot of her, probably for the high school yearbook. A fresh-faced young girl with a whole life ahead of her. She had dark wavy hair and crystal-blue eyes. Each reflected a small star of light, the flash of the camera. There was also a candid of her, in shorts and a tank top. She was smiling, carrying a cardboard box away from a car. The muscles of her slender, tan arms were taut. It looked as though it was a slight strain for her to stand still with the heavy box for the photographer. I turned it over and read in what I guessed was a parent's scrawl: "Terri's first day on campus! Denver, Colo."

  The other pictures were taken after. There were more of these and I was struck by the number. Why did the cops need so many? Each one seemed like some kind of a terrible invasion, even though the girl was already dead. Theresa Lofton's eyes had lost their brilliance in these photographs. They were open but dull, webbed in a milky caul.