Gnosis (17 page)

He took a swig of Dr. Pepper and sighed out loud. The prospect of severing ties with Cheryl was more than a little disheartening. It was downright depressing. After all, how often does a fifty-nine-year old man have a sexual relationship with a twenty-six-year-old woman, especially one with the looks and body of a Playboy playmate? Once in a lifetime, if the man gets lucky. And if he were being completely honest with himself, he would admit that he hired Cheryl for her body, not for her brains. It had been a regrettable mistake, one that had to be rectified. Saying goodbye to Cheryl was going to be more painful than paying alimony. But he had no choice. It had to be done.

Sandwich and chips devoured, Rogers dug into the cheesecake. It was smooth and creamy, exactly the way he liked it. Plain, too, without some nonsensical chocolate syrup or strawberries lathered on top like an unwanted oil spill. That would only ruin it. No whipped cream, either. Cheesecake was meant to be eaten plain, sans any and all adornments. He had always preferred it that way.

When he finished the cheesecake and Dr. Pepper, he dumped everything back into the brown sack and dropped it into the wastebasket. Leaning forward, he shuffled through the notes Devon had given him before leaving for the day. Three related to phone calls he needed to return; those he would put off until Monday morning. There was a message reminding him of his seven o’clock meeting with Lance Ford, a stockbroker who was embroiled in a war of wills with the Internal Revenue Service. Lance, it seems, had conveniently neglected to list all of his income for the past three years, an oversight the IRS frowned upon. Lance was, Rogers knew, fighting a losing battle with those vultures. His best bet—confess his sins and beg for mercy, not that he should expect any. Those IRS folks are notoriously short on forgiveness.

The last note informed him that Detective Dantzler would be here at six. Rogers looked at his Rolex—it was now five twenty-five. He stood, went to the window, and looked outside. Night was rapidly closing in, those dark clouds off to the east bringing with them the threat of rain. West Short Street was deserted, not a soul in sight. Unusual, especially for a Friday.

Rogers felt like the only person left on the planet.

Standing there, deep in thought, he began to feel a strange heat rushing through his body, scorching his insides. He had the peculiar feeling that his blood was on fire. Butterflies suddenly fluttered in his stomach, a battalion of imaginary winged creatures gone berserk. His legs grew weak, and his breathing became quick and shallow. For a split second, he was certain he was going to pass out.

And he knew why his nerves were so unsteady.

Dantzler.

No secret why he’s coming—to talk about the Reverend. To stick his detective’s nose where it doesn’t belong. To dig up skeletons from the past. To uncover secrets buried by the passage of time.

To shine a light into dark places best left alone.

Rogers struggled to calm his shaky nerves, to get control of his emotions and thoughts. This was no time for weakness, not when facing a guy like Dantzler. He’s a cop, and like everyone else in law enforcement, he sees weakness as one of the absolute signs of untruthfulness. And he has a reputation for sniffing out weakness the way a shark sniffs out a drop of blood miles away in the ocean. Dantzler was known as a furious, hard-edged investigator.

Falter ever so slightly and Dantzler will know. Then he’ll pounce, relentlessly, until you cave in.

Rogers felt as if he were about to lose his supper. He swallowed hard, took several deep breaths, and sat back down. Perspiration dripped from his chin to the desk. The butterflies continued to swarm inside him.

Stop this
, Rogers silently admonished.
Okay, so Dantzler wants to talk. Big deal. What questions could he possibly ask that I can’t answer honestly? None. I know the Reverend’s story, know it by heart, which means I am fully aware of what I can reveal and what I must keep secret. Dantzler has only speculation to go up against my knowledge and that gives me the clear advantage. He cannot win against me. I can handle anything he throws my way. I am superior
.

Rogers felt his nerves begin to settle and the butterflies disperse. He had won the internal debate against the coward that lay deep inside him, that quiet but often persuasive voice he continually had to battle, to silence, to drive away from the dark places in his soul.

He was ready for Dantzler
. Let the great detective bring on the questions. Let him probe and dig for my weaknesses. He won’t find any
.

I am superior
.

At that moment, Rogers heard a knock at his door. He glanced at his Rolex. Five-forty. Dantzler, true to his reputation, was eager for confrontation. So be it, Rogers murmured to himself. I am also ready for confrontation.

Striding confidently forward, Rogers moved through the outer office and opened the door. Surprise and confusion registered in equal amounts when he saw the man standing in front of him. It was not Jack Dantzler.

It was—

“What are you doing here?” Rogers asked.

The man said nothing as he slowly raised his right arm. In his hand was the most beautiful pistol Colt Rogers had ever seen.

“What the hell?” Rogers said, backing away.

Those were his last words before his face exploded.

What had once been Colt Rogers’s face was now a grotesque mixture of blood, flesh, bone, and brain tissue. One eye, blown out of its socket, dangled down his cheek
like a ball on a string. The other eye had been obliterated upon impact. His nose was gone, along with virtually all of his lower jaw. The back of his head had fared no better, having been utterly destroyed by the blast, which blew open a gaping fist-size hole that exposed a small segment of brain that miraculously had survived intact. Brain matter, blood, and tissue had sprayed across the office to the back wall, where, Dantzler knew, they would likely find the bullet that had inflicted such damage.

Mac Tinsley knelt next to the body, his gloved hands bloody from inspecting the massive wounds. A diminutive man famed for his black horn-rimmed glasses and his meticulous work ethic, Mac had been the coroner for almost four decades. The joke was that Mac had been around so long he performed the autopsy on poor, murdered Abel. But Mac’s days on the job were numbered. With his sixty-fifth birthday less than a month away, he had recently made the decision
to call it quits at the end of the year. He had concluded that enough was enough.

“Tell you one thing for certain, Jackie-boy,” Mac said, removing the bloody Latex gloves. “There will be no open casket at Colt’s funeral service. In all my years doing this nasty work, I can only recall two occasions when I’ve seen such extensive damage to a man’s face. Both were suicides, and both victims used a shotgun.”

Dantzler helped Mac to his feet. “Any guess as to how long he’s been dead?”

“The man’s still warm. This happened within the past ninety minutes.”

“The shooter cut it close,” Dantzler said. “I couldn’t have missed him by more than a few minutes.”

Richard Bird entered the office, glanced down at the body, and quickly looked away. Bird, head of the Homicide division, had no stomach for the ugliness of the job. His talent was administrative, not investigative detective legwork. Politics rather than police procedure was his strength. He much preferred his cool office to a vulgar
crime scene.

“Damn, I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that,” Bird said, shaking his head. “What a mess.”

“Am I clear to take the body, Jackie-boy?” Mac said. “Did you get everything you need?”

Dantzler looked toward the back of the office, where Milt was overseeing one of the crime scene tech’s efforts to retrieve the bullet. “Milt, any reason to keep the body here?”

“Nope. Feel free to take Mr. Rogers out of his neighborhood.” Milt held up his right hand. “Got the bullet, Jack. Big sucker, too, just like we suspected. In fairly good condition considering the road it traveled. I’m guessing this came from a forty-four or a three-fifty-eight.”

“That makes Clint Eastwood our prime suspect,” Bird said.

“For taking out a lawyer, I vote to give Clint an award.” Milt laughed. “I always felt one of Clint’s old flicks perfectly summed up my feelings toward our barristers—
Hang ’Em High
.”

“That’s not funny, Milt,” Bird said. He looked at Dantzler. “But Rogers was a lawyer. I’m sure he had plenty of enemies.”

“I’m sure he did. But this wasn’t done by an angry client. This is connected to the Eli Whitehouse case.”

“You don’t know that for sure, Jack.”

“Come on, Rich. Think about it. I’m supposed to meet Rogers at six, to talk about Eli’s case, and when I get here, he’s dead. That’s more of a coincidence than I care to accept.”

“What time
did
you get here?”

“Six, straight up. Mac says Rogers couldn’t have been killed more than fifteen minutes before I got here. That—”

“How did the killer know you were going to be here?” Bird asked, shaking his head. “And how could he possibly know what you were planning to discuss with Rogers?”

“Don’t know. What I can tell you is this has to do with my re-opening the Eli Whitehouse case.”

“But there are differences. You’ve said from the beginning a professional hit man took out those two boys in ’eighty-two. This doesn’t look professional to me.”

“Well, you’re wrong, Rich. We’ve been all over this place and we can’t find a shell casing. That tells me the shooter, despite being in a time pinch, acted in a cool and collective manner. Like a pro. He didn’t panic
.
”

“You could be right, Jack. But you could also be dead wrong. I don’t want us heading down one path at the exclusion of all others. You want to continue with the Eli Whitehouse case, that’s okay with me. But I’m assigning Milt and Eric to look into Colt Rogers’s murder as a separate case. We clear on that?”

“Perfectly. That’s the way we should approach it.”

Dantzler and Bird watched as the covered body of Colt Rogers was loaded onto a gurney and taken out of the office. Mac Tinsley closed his medical bag, picked it up, and followed the body outside into the darkness.

“Damn, a bullet in the face,” Bird said. “That’d be a hard way to go.”

“Is there ever
an easy way?” Dantzler asked.

*****

West Short Street, deserted two hours ago, was now a buzz of activity and energy. Curious onlookers, having learned via the gossip grapevine that a murder had occurred, poured out of the nearby bars and restaurants eager to see what happened. Within a matter of minutes, they were three deep behind the blocked off section and multiplying fast. Nothing draws a big crowd quicker than yellow crime scene tape and rumors of a grisly murder.

Microphone
-
toting reporters from two local TV stations were on the prowl for interviews, moving rapidly toward anyone who looked even remotely official. A female scribe from the newspaper had Richard Bird cornered against an adjacent building. Bird, at six-six, towered above his inquisitor, who was scribbling at a furious pace, certain she was being given inside information about the murder, when, in fact, she wasn’t. No reporter ever got a scoop from Richard Bird. He possessed a great talent for saying nothing relevant or important while giving the impression he had recently descended Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. Bamboozled reporters, eager to uncover the big scoop, confused gibberish for gospel.  

Outside, in front of Colt Rogers’s office, Dantzler huddled with Milt and Eric. A strategy needed to be put in place, he knew, and now rather than later. While Dantzler didn’t necessarily buy into the long-held consensus that if a murder isn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours, it likely never will be, he did agree that time is of the essence. The killer already had a head start. The trick is to not let him get so far ahead he can’t be caught.