STATE OF ANGER: A Virgil Jones Mystery Series (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 1) (15 page)

A hinged, two-photo frame sat at
eye level on one of the shelves. One side of the frame held a sepia-toned
picture of a young couple’s profile as they looked at each other, the opposite
side held a color photo, yellowed with age, of a young man dressed in jungle
fatigues standing next to an airplane somewhere in the tropics. Her father
perhaps. But it was a single photo next to the others that caught Virgil’s eye
and reminded him of Cora’s comments about not being able to serve the State and
his own personal agenda at the same time. The photo was one of him and Murton,
taken just after they’d arrived home from basic training, before being shipped
out to fight in the gulf war. They stood side by side, their arms around each
other, both of them smiling at the camera. Just off to the side, part of her
face cut out of the frame of the photo, was Virgil’s mother. She was looking at
them and the flash of the camera caught the tears that ran down her cheek.

He left the photo untouched and
continued to search the room. A February 2006 issue of Psychology Today was on
the sofa, open to an article entitled, ‘A Field Guide to Narcissism.’ Virgil
wasted a few minutes scanning the article before deciding he was not
narcissistic and tossed it back on the couch.

The kitchen was extremely small, a
nook really, with only one florescent light bulb that hummed above the kitchen
sink. The flickering light against the dark paneled walls reminded him of the
times he’d spent as a child with his grandfather when he’d wake in the early
morning to the smell of percolated coffee and toasted wheat bread before they’d
go out to fish on his neighbor’s pond.

They spent three hours searching
Amy Frechette’s residence—every  drawer, all the closets, the attic, the
crawl space and every inch in between turning up exactly nothing, though Virgil
would have been the first to admit he didn’t really expect to find a ledger in
Murton’s handwriting that detailed a master plan to kill Franklin Dugan. In the
end, they’d made a hell of a mess but turned up no evidence whatsoever.

Virgil’s cell phone buzzed and
when he looked at the screen the number was not one he’d seen before. “Jones.”

“You’re not going to find
anything,” Murton said. “There’s nothing there. There never was. I’m not the
man you think I am, Jonesy.”

“Murt, what the hell is going on?
That was you in the cab, wasn’t it? If you’re not part of this, come in and
we’ll—“

He laughed without humor. “We’ll
what, figure everything out? Get me a lawyer? I don’t think so, pal. We were
going to be married, did you know that? Did she tell you that?

“Murt…”

“I left to protect her, Jonesy. I
told them she didn’t know anything, that she was just a minister working with
pre-school children. She was pregnant. We found out about a week ago. She died
thinking I left her because she was pregnant. Jesus, what have I done?”

Virgil picked up the phone from
the kitchen and dialed 911. “Murt, I’m sorry. Let me help you.” He could hear
the 911 operator in the background asking if someone needed assistance.

“You know, I always sort of had it
in my head that you and I might hook back up one day, but I guess that ship has
sailed. That’s not on you, though. Hey, what’s that we used to say? Pop ‘em and
drop ‘em? That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Tell your old man he’s the best,
will you? And don’t bother trying to get a trace on this phone. It’s one of
those pre-paid specials. It’s about to be road kill on the interstate. What a
country, huh?”

Sandy came around the corner just
as Murton broke the connection. “What’s going on?” she said.

“I wish I knew.”

20

__________

M
onday
morning when Virgil arrived at his office he discovered Amanda Pate sitting in
one of the two chairs that front his desk. “Your assistant said I could wait in
here.”

“What do you want, Amanda?”

“What do I want?
For God’s
sake, Jonesy, I want my husband released from that rat hole you’ve put him in.
He’s been in there all weekend. What were you thinking?”

Virgil looked at his watch.
“Arraignment is in two hours. He can bond out afterwards.”

“Bond out? Have you lost your
mind? I want the charges against him dropped and I want him released this
instant.”

“That’s not going to happened,
Amanda. It’s time to get a grip on reality, here. Samuel is being held for
assault on a police officer.”

“Oh, bullshit, Jonesy. That is
pure and utter bullshit, and you know it. You’re holding him because you think
he’s somehow mixed up in Franklin’s death, and that just isn’t true. God, you
piss me off.”

“If it’s not true, then convince
him to talk to me so I can clear him and move on, otherwise, he’s our number
one suspect.”

“Our attorney has advised
us—”

Virgil waved her off. “Yes, yes,
your attorney has advised you not to speak with the police or answer any of our
questions. That’s what attorneys do, Amanda. But the hard reality of the
situation is this: The truth eventually comes out, and when it does, it’s one
of two ways. Either a suspect talks to us and we clear their story, or we move
forward with charges and the whole thing goes to trial. Which would you
prefer?”

She rose from the chair, her face
and neck red with anger. “You’re wrong,” she said. “Those aren’t the only two
choices.”

“I’m afraid that’s the way I see
it, Amanda. If you or Samuel change your mind and want to get on the record, let
me know. Otherwise, we will be moving forward on the case with the evidence
we’ve accumulated from both your home and your offices.”

“What evidence? There is no
evidence.”

“We’re building our case, Amanda.
I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you. If I were you, I’d advise Samuel that
it’s time to get in front of this thing before it’s too late. Capital murder in
the State of Indiana carries the death penalty. With a full confession, the
D.A. might be willing to accept a plea deal of life without the possibility of
parole, but I may be speaking out of turn here. I can check with him if you’d
like.”

She pointed her finger at him, the
fear and rage evident when she spoke. “Fuck you, Jonesy. Fuck you times two,
you son of a bitch.”

“Good bye, Amanda. Next time you
want to speak with me, make an appointment.”

A few minutes later, when he
looked out his office window at the street below, Virgil saw Amanda as she crossed
the street toward the courthouse. The morning traffic was heavy and when she
walked out into the street and stopped halfway across, she forced the vehicles
around her to swerve or stop completely. She turned and looked up at Virgil in
the window and shook her head, staring at him until he moved away.

Fuck her, Virgil thought.

__________

An hour or so later Virgil was
still at his desk when Agent Gibson knocked on the doorjamb and walked into his
office. He sat down without being asked, bit into the bottom corner of his lip
then raised his eyebrows at Virgil. “So maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Heard you tried to brace the governor.
How’d that work out for you?”

“Hey, I’m trying here. You want my
help, or not?”

Good question, Virgil thought.
“What exactly do you want, Agent Gibson?”

“Bottom line? I want you to drop
the charges against Pate. His arraignment is less than an hour from now.”

“You asked me if I wanted your
help. How exactly does my dropping charges against Pate help me?”

“Look, Detective. You’ve managed
to drop a turd in the punch bowl and now I’m the one who has to clean it up.
We’ve been monitoring Pate’s activities for months trying to put our case
together. If I can be blunt, you’re getting in the way. This assault charge you’ve
got hanging over him is going to hurt our chances and while you’re doing that,
I have to wonder, Detective, is it helping your case at all? Is it putting you
any closer to solving the murders you’re working on?”

“Nice speech, but you still
haven’t answered my question.”

“How sure are you of Pate’s
involvement in Dugan’s death?”

“He’s our primary suspect.”

“Based on what?”

When Virgil didn’t answer, Gibson
went on. “Okay, here it is. I work out of the Houston office, but I guess you
know that. It’s the Texas Department of Insurance that’s under investigation by
our office for fraud, not Pate. Pate torched his church in Houston and when the
company who underwrote his policy started making waves about writing the check,
the Texas DOI got involved and Pate walked away with a wad of cash before the
building had stopped smoldering.”

“So what?” Virgil said. “File
charges on the Commissioner of the Texas DOI.”

“We did. But his lawyer cut a hell
of a deal and now the commissioner is part of witness protection.”

“Witness protection? What for?”

Gibson half laughed at the
questions. “You Midwestern guys are something, you know that?

“What exactly is that supposed to
mean?”

“Let me put it this way,” he said.
“You think the Catholic priests are the only ones tweaking the twangers on
little boys?”

“How about you take the corn dog
out of your mouth and tell me the whole story?”

“Hey, great choice of words. When
we took the commissioner down for fraud we discovered his personal computer was
full of pictures of little kids with no clothes on. He cut a deal and put us
onto Pate, who the commissioner says was supplying the photos. Our analysts
compared the background of the photos to ones we could find of Pate’s church
before he torched it. We think they match up. In any event, the Commissioner
says Pate blackmailed him and had him lean on the insurance company to write the
check or he’d start to squeal about the photos.”

“You’re saying Samuel Pate is a
pedophile?”

“You tell me,” Gibson said. “I
read your report on that dilapidated church he bought for five million bucks.
What was he going to do with it? Knock it down and build a learning center for
pre-school kids or something like that? But let me guess, when you searched the
Pate complex and his home you didn’t find one scrap of evidence that ties him
to your case or mine. And in the meantime, that old broken down building, the
one that wasn’t included in your search warrant burns to a crisp along with any
evidence that may or may not have been material to your case, let alone mine.”
He stood from his chair and turned to leave. “Someone is leading you around by
your nose, Detective. Take the corn dog out of my mouth. I love it.”

__________

Virgil walked over to Cora’s
office to fill her in on the conversations with Amanda Pate and Agent Gibson.
She sat quietly and listened, but when he got to the part of Pate’s alleged
involvement as a pedophile, her expression looked like that of a passenger staring
out the window of an airliner at thirty thousand feet as they watched the
rivets pop one at a time from the wing of a plane.

“What is it?”

 “So you’re saying we’ve got a suspected
murderer and pedophile in custody and Gibson wants us to let him skate?”

“He’s going to get out anyway,”
Virgil said. “Besides, I think Gibson may be right. Someone is pulling our
strings behind the curtain. I just don’t know who it is, or why. But I don’t
think it has anything to do with Pate.”

Cora looked at him for a moment, then
said something that made Virgil think they were having two different
conversations. “Is there something you’d like to tell me regarding the nature
of your relationship with Detective Small?”

When he did not answer her right
away, she said, “I see. What about Wheeler? What did Gibson tell you about him?
You did ask, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Your personal life is interfering
with your job, Jonesy. Clean it up.”

“I’m not sure I understand what
you’re saying, Cora.”

“I think you do,” she said, then
stared at the paperwork on her desk until Virgil got up and walked out.

__________

The conversation with Cora left
Virgil confused and angry. He ate lunch by himself in a small diner near his
office and by the time he was finished, he had concluded that Cora was probably
right. He was romantically involved with a co-worker, and his lifelong friend,
Murton Wheeler, was somehow connected—at least on the periphery—with
a serial murder investigation, and as the chief investigative officer of the
State of Indiana he’d put no more effort into his apprehension than he would a
Sunday jaywalker late for morning Mass. Virgil finished his sandwich, paid the
tab, and got ready to leave when something occurred to him. Gibson was right.
Somebody was pulling his strings and Virgil realized he’d been in possession of
a large part of the answer all along. Maybe not the entire answer, but a pretty
damn big piece. And more importantly, he knew what he had to do next.

He walked out to his truck and
just as he reached the driver’s door he heard the footsteps coming hard from
behind. Virgil turned in time to see a club being swung at his head and he
tried to bring his right arm up to block the blow, but the attacker made just
enough contact to knock him off balance and he fell face first into the
pavement. Before he could move or get up he was hit again, this time in the
back of the head, and that’s the last thing Virgil remembered until he woke
some time later, a thick blindfold across his eyes, his body bound with rope
across a vertical steel support structure with his arms out from his sides and
tied to a cross member as if he were being crucified.

He tried to pull free, but knew it
was pointless. He had virtually no feeling left in his arms or legs, and no
idea how long he’d been unconscious and tied up.

Virgil let his head hang down, his
chin against his chest. Heard himself whisper Sandy’s name.