HOMICIDE COP FOUND DEAD IN MOTEL:
POLICE BAFFLED
by Robert Mayer

The match flared, burning a small circle of illumination in the darkness. I held the flame to the end of my cigarette and sucked in enough smoke to fill my lungs. The sweet, stale taste of the tobacco partially masked the metallic tang of blood at the back of my throat. I sat at the desk, concentrating on the burning match to avoid looking over my shoulder at Tom's body stretched out on the worn carpet next to the bed. When the match finally died between my fingers, I dropped it in the blue plastic ashtray in front of me. I let the smoke drift out of my half-open lips, watching it twist like a wraith in the twilight of the motel room. Tearing another match free, I slid it against the flint. Outside, rain continued to hammer the building and rattle the window in front of me. Dampness invaded the room, leaking through the closed curtains and seeping under the ill-fitting door.

After checking Tom's body for a pulse, I had thoroughly searched his pockets, removing anything that didn't seem part of his usual paraphernalia. Tom and I had been partners on the homicide squad for six years so I pretty much knew what I would find. I put aside three objects that seemed out of place: the matchbook, a business card, and a ring with a diamond chip set in it. A good detective, as good as Tom had been, might have been able to use these three clues to identify Tom's killer. I used to be a good detective, maybe the best on our small squad. I had more experience than Tom, but Tom was younger and more eager. In the long run, the question of who was better was a toss-up. I guess it didn't matter anymore. Anyway, as good as I was, I had no way to guarantee I would catch this case. It would probably be assigned to someone with a little more objectivity. I figured I had three or four hours before a citizen spotted Tom's car in the deserted motel parking lot and called it in. Time enough, I thought. My second match burned out.

I laid the matchbook down next to the ring and the business card, arranging them in a neat line in front of me. Faint illumination from the streetlight outside filtered through the thin curtains on the window. I didn't feel like turning the light back on. Picking up the matchbook again, I turned it over in my fingers. Red letters on the black cover spelled out “Bob's Bar.” I tilted it toward the window. Did the letters resemble dripping blood? Or was I just being morbid? I flicked the cover open. It felt stiff and new. Nothing was written on the inside. I closed the flap, tucking it back behind the strip of flint. The thing that made the matchbook stick out was Tom didn't smoke. Never had. And he didn't hang out in places like “Bob's Bar.”

“Bob's” was a place you went to drink if you were serious about drinking, and only drinking. A dingy shoebox of a building, adrift in a failed strip mall on the outskirts of town, it was not a place you just wandered into. The neon sign above the door burned out long ago. The only window was coated in thick grime, keeping the interior in constant twilight. A fog of cigarette smoke hid the ceiling, although, I confess, I never really tried to look at the ceiling, or the floor, for that matter. Some things you're better off not examining too closely. In the corner, above the bar, a tiny television flickered listlessly all night long with the sound turned off. Flimsy booths knocked together out of plywood lined one long wall. The bar itself ran along the opposite wall. In between lay the seats of last resort, three tables surrounded by a collection of mismatched chairs. The wood of the tables and booths was stained black, either intentionally by Bob, or incidentally by the perpetual smoke. Bob's tireless polishing left the scarred top of the bar the only surface safe to touch.

Bob himself was tall, well-built, with thinning hair that he wore tied back in a wispy ponytail. He kept the bar open from sunset to sunrise. Somebody once said he had a thing about daylight. Never went out until the sun set. Something about the war. Anyway, he was the only one I ever saw working there. No one served you at the tables or in the booths. You had to go over to the bar, order your drink from Bob, pay him, and carry it back to your seat. The regular customers knew the rules. Conversation wasn't exactly forbidden, but carried on in tones so low, the words ended up buried by the clink of glasses and the thunk of bottles hitting the wood tabletops.

Since “Bob's” had a small and particular clientele, any stranger was immediately noticed. And Tom would definitely have been a stranger. A clean-cut guy who didn't smoke and drank “lite” beer, I figured Bob would remember him. And remember who he was with. A good detective, hell, a halfway competent detective, would be talking to Bob in the morning, showing him a picture of Tom. Bob was the kind of guy who didn't want to be noticed, didn't want any trouble. He'd tell whoever asked about the night Tom came in and sipped ‘lite” beer with one of the regulars. And slipped a matchbook into his pocket as a reminder of the conversation.

I stubbed out my cigarette and closed my eyes, slouching in the chair, eliciting a mournful complaint from the cheap wood. The desk was jammed against the wall just below the window with a view out to the motel parking lot. I had closed the cheap drapes and turned off the overhead light after I got here. Even with my eyes closed, I could see the room behind me. The bed protruding from the wall on my right, and beyond it, the bathroom door, a black rectangle gaping in the gray wall. Between the bed and the chair, Tom's body sprawled, his hands flung out to his sides, two ragged, bloody holes in the center of his chest.

The gun lay on the bed next to him. I wondered about that. It was, of course, another clue. Guns could be surprisingly revealing. Even without serial numbers, they had a way of telling a story, shedding light on a crime. The rifling inside the barrel created distinctive marks on the bullets. The marks could be compared with those in a database somewhere, allowing the gun to be traced. And guns had lots of places that might collect fingerprints. Like after a cleaning, a careless guy could leave a print on one of the inside surfaces. Or on the bullets themselves. A good lab could do a lot with a gun if it was found.

The pounding rain outside was distracting. I opened my eyes and lit another match. I needed to concentrate. I wanted a drink, or another cigarette. Instead, I flipped the match into the ashtray and picked up the ring.

A plain gold band with a tiny shard of diamond. By the look of it, a man's wedding ring. I tried to remember, without looking, if Tom was wearing his wedding ring. Probably. I knew he usually did. He was upfront about being married, not like some of the other guys whose rings stayed in their lockers at the station. And Tom's girlfriend didn't seem to mind about his marriage. Guess she wasn't interested in that kind of commitment.

Funny, but despite the girlfriend, Tom's marriage to Annie seemed stable. Annie was a compact redhead with flashing green eyes. She was warm and friendly and endlessly patient with Tom. With me, too, I guess. The last time I had seen Tom and Annie together, we were out on a double date. They were worried about me, or at least Annie was. Worried that I couldn't climb out of the depression I sunk into after Carole left. Worried I was drinking too much, getting a little ragged around the edges. I figured I'd prove everything was okay by bringing a date.

I thought a minute. What was that girl's name? Traci? Debbi? I shook my head, but it was no good. The name was gone. I'm sure it ended with an “i,” but I couldn't pull the name out of the swirl of fog that was my memory. I think I met her in a bar somewhere. Not “Bob's.” You didn't go to “Bob's” to meet women. Annie and Tom looked a little surprised when I showed up with “It ends in i” on my arm. They were good about it, though, trying to go along, but Terri, or Lori, was one of those women who laughs a little too loudly at jokes that aren't really funny and drinks a little too quickly. I wasn't slow on the drinking that night either. Probably why the dinner is mostly a dim memory now.

A detective finding Tom carrying a wedding ring that wasn't his would ask some interesting questions. Like whose was it? And why did Tom have it? He must have thought it meant something. In murder investigations, you always look at home first. What about Annie? Her Irish temper? Maybe she knew about Tom's girlfriend. Maybe she wanted out of the marriage. Quickly. I didn't really think Annie was capable of murder, but, if pushed, isn't anyone?

I recalled the conversation Tom and I had, sitting in a bar a couple of nights ago. The place was nearly empty. Tom was nursing his “lite” beer. He said he thought someone in our squad was on the take. I nodded. Could be, I said. Some nasty rumors were circulating. A couple of recent collars didn't stand up when evidence disappeared from the locker at the station. Partners were starting to look at each other, wondering, is it you? And some of these guys had been with their partners longer than their current wives. But still, doubts crept in.

Tom said he thought he had a line on the cop behind it. Wanted to talk to me before taking it up the chain. Said he had solid evidence. Could have been this ring, I guess.

I placed the ring gently on the desk and looked at the business card. I struck another match but I already knew what it said on the card. “James Shinbo, Financial Adviser.” Below that was a phone number but no address. Tom and I knew Jimmy Shinbo, a guy coming from nowhere and on the way back. Along the way, he grabbed a little piece of something to call his own and made a lot of people unhappy. We called him “Legs.” He hated that. He spoke English pretty well but couldn't understand the joke. Kept slapping his shin, saying, “This is shin, not leg.” Tom and I just laughed.

Of course, Jimmy wasn't really a “Financial Adviser.” He was a loan shark. Not the worst one, but not one you went to if you had a better alternative. Jimmy was very serious about collecting what he was owed. A month ago, Tom and I busted him on a killing that looked like a collection effort gone bad. I think Jimmy actually wanted the guy to live, but when you're using a baseball bat to persuade someone, it's easy to get carried away. The guy died on the way to the hospital. Tom and I caught the call. As it happened, I knew the dead guy, a chronic drunk and constantly in debt. Used to see him at “Bob's,” until he couldn't pay his tab and Bob stopped serving him. Tom and I asked around a bit and Jimmy's name came up, so we went out and picked “Legs” up.

After two hours of sweating Jimmy, he still claimed he was playing cards with friends at the time of the beating. Jimmy was tough, I'll give him that, but stupid. What he didn't know was we already had the bloody baseball bat with a clear set of Jimmy's prints on it. Recovered at the scene. Documented chain of custody. Securely tucked away in the evidence locker. The prosecutor was drooling. Then the damn bat disappeared. Along with it, the case against Jimmy. I remember Tom was pretty upset about the whole thing. Is that why he had Jimmy's business card?

I thought of another angle. Tom's girlfriend, Shellie, was Jimmy's old girlfriend. Not a good situation. I warned Tom about it, but he said she and Jimmy were finished. What if Jimmy didn't see it that way? What if he decided Tom needed to leave Shellie alone? Based on Jimmy's rep and the business card, he might look good for Tom's murder. Maybe a case could be made against him, but then, where did the other items on the desk fit in? Would anyone believe a cagey cop like Tom would let a sleazeball like Jimmy meet him in this crappy motel room without taking some precautions? Thing was, I needed a nice clean case, not one complicated by contradictory clues. Let one of my colleagues take this on and they'd be asking questions for a month.

I flipped Jimmy's business card over and struck another match. There was a phone number written in pencil on the back of the card. I repeated the numbers to myself. My cell phone. Damn, that would put a different spin on things. I dropped the match. Maybe no one would flip the card over. If they did, maybe they would think Tom just needed a place to jot down my number. The guy was my partner for six years and he needed to write down my phone number? Would anyone buy that?

Besides, I thought, if they really looked at the number, they might recognize my handwriting. I turned the card over, laying it back down on the desk. I picked up the wedding ring. Experimentally, I slid it on my finger. Still a pretty good fit. Guess Tom retrieved it from the pawn shop. I took the ring off and dropped it into my jacket pocket. Then I scooped up Jimmy's card. I hoped he wouldn't need the number again. The card went in my pocket, too. Finally I tossed the matchbook into the ashtray and dumped the whole mess into another pocket. I got up and turned to look down at Tom. He didn't look peaceful in death, he looked surprised. Maybe he was a good detective, but he didn't know who his friends were. I picked up the gun and stuck it in my waistband. I took one last look around the room before opening the door and stepping out into the rain.

END