STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (3 page)

“We need to talk to you, Jonesy.
I’m sorry about this, I really am.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Oh for Christ sake, Cora, look at
him,” Pearson said. “It’s the right call. He’s in no condition. No condition at
all. He has tubes coming out of him and he sounds like he’s three sheets to the
wind. How about we get this over with and get back to work.”

“Hi, Bradley, always a pleasure,”
Virgil said. “I’m standing right here, you know. How about telling me what’s
going on?”

Pearson ran his hands across his forehead
then up through his thinning hair. He pulled back so hard on his scalp that for
a moment the outer corners of his eyes angled upward in a manner that gave him
an effeminate look. He started to speak, but Cora cut him off.

“Jonesy, about an hour ago, on
direct orders from the Governor, you’ve been replaced as lead detective of the
Major Crimes Unit.” She paused to let her words sink in and Virgil saw her eyes
slide away from his own. “Ron Miles has been appointed by the Governor as your
replacement.”

Virgil sat back down in his lawn chair
and looked out at the pond water. When he didn’t respond, Pearson filled the
silence. “Jesus Christ, Jones, what did you expect? Look at yourself. You’re a goddamned
mess. How many pills are you popping these days, anyway?”

“Why are you here, Bradley?”

“To make sure that there is no
misunderstanding regarding your situation.”

The drugs were still working on him
and when Virgil spoke he took no care with his words or their intent. “How much
of that is your doing, Pearson? Never mind, you don’t have to answer. We
already know the answer to that question, don’t we? So here’s the deal,
Pearson…I think I want you to leave. In fact, I’m sure of it. Would you like me
to show you to your car?”

“In your condition? I’d like to see
you try,” Pearson said. He stepped forward and when he did his foot came down
on top of the cane pole and snapped it in half. Pearson jumped a little at the
sound the cane made when it broke and when he did, Virgil knew he had not
stepped on it with purpose. Pearson bent over to pick up the ruined pole, as if
the act of lifting it in his hands could repair the damage. “Don’t touch that,”
Virgil said, his voice no more than a whisper. “I really would like you to leave
now.”

Cora looked at Pearson, then back
at Virgil. “Would you two please give it a rest?”

“This is my home, Cora.” Virgil
said. “I make the rules here. Not him and you know what? Not you, either.” When
she didn’t respond, Virgil said, “What?”

“There’s something else.”

“There always is, Cora. I just can’t
for the life of me imagine what it might be.”

“Your replacement isn’t temporary. They’re
not going to let you come back.”

Virgil stood and faced her. “Say
that again.”

Cora took an involuntary step back,
as if in fear. “The state. They’re forcing you out.”

“
What?
On what grounds?”

“The medical reports for one. You’ll
qualify for three-quarters disability. With your time on the job your pension
will kick in right away. I’ve done the math and the truth is you’ll be making
more by walking away than if you stayed.”

Virgil kept glancing over at the
willow tree, as if something his father had said would somehow help him. He bent
down to retrieve the broken cane pole and when he stood, the look on Cora’s
face seemed as sad and mixed as his own emotions.

“How bad is it?” she said.

“I don’t know, Cora. Some things
just can’t be fixed.”

She stepped close and placed her
hand on the flat of Virgil’s bare chest, her eyes inspecting the PICC line. “I’m
not talking about the fishing pole, Jonesy.”

“I know you’re not. Neither am I.”

Cora shook her head, then raised
her chin, her voice taking on an official tone. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m
going to have to ask you for your badge.”

Virgil dropped the cane pole back
in the grass at Pearson’s feet, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his
badge and skipped it across the surface of the pond. The badge made it about
half way across before it settled and then sank in the murky depths.

“You want my badge? Go and get it.”
He turned to walk up to his house, but Cora didn’t let it play.

“You break my heart sometimes,
Jonesy. Do you know that?”

4

__________

R
on
Miles ducked under
the
crime-scene tape and stepped up to the apartment door, then stopped in his
tracks. He peered inside, saw the crime scene techs—seven of them in all,
the most he’d seen at one location in quite a while—caught Rosie’s eye, then
backed out so as not to contaminate the area.
Shit load of blood,
he
thought.

Ron had been around. Had spent most
of his career as an Indianapolis Metro Homicide cop, so he was no stranger to
crime scenes or blood, but still, hell of a way to start a new job, that much
blood.

__________

A few minutes later
Detective
Tom Rosencrantz stepped out of
the apartment wearing Tyvek coveralls, shoe protectors and latex gloves. There
were bloodstains on his knees, the tops of his shoe protectors by his toes and
the palms of his hands. He unzipped the suit, pulled the hood back and stripped
out of the gear. One of the techs handed him a biohazard bag and he dropped
everything inside and handed it back. “Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen that much
blood without a body,” he said to Miles. “You just get here?”

“Yeah. What do you mean without a
body?”

“I mean, there’s enough blood in
there to do a remake of Stephen King’s Carrie, but there’s no body.”

“Huh. How much blood are they
saying?”

Rosencrantz looked over Ron’s
shoulder. “You get a new car?”

“Yep, just picked it up two days
ago. The guys over at the motor pool set me up with the radios, lights and
siren, the works.”

Rosencrantz smiled at him. “Nice.”
The car was nice too. A brand new 2013 black over black Ford Fusion. “Get the
Police Interceptor motor?”

“You mean engine. Motor is
electric. Engine is internal combustion. And yeah, did I ever. Goddamn thing
runs like a raped ape. All-wheel drive too.” Miles glanced at the apartment.
“So anyway, how much blood?”

“Here comes Mimi. I’ll let her
explain it. I guess it’s sort of technical. Plus, that voice of hers…”

Miles puffed out his cheeks. “Tell
me about it. She could be one of those phone sex broads. Half the time when
she’s talking to me I feel like I’m about to get busted for sexual harassment
just for listening.”

“Just half?” Rosencrantz made a rude
noise with his lips. “You’re doing better than me.”

“They still have that, don’t they?
Those phone sex lines?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,”
Rosencrantz said, his face as flat and blank as a piece of slate.

__________

Mimi Phillips, the
Lead
Crime Scene
technician told them in no
uncertain terms—all with a voice that sounded like a 30-second satellite radio
spot for a porn flick—that whomever the blood belonged to, they were,
without question, as dead as the Pope’s dick. “Double entendre intended,” she
added.

“You’re sure?” Miles asked.

Mimi reached into her pocket then
folded a stick of gum across her tongue. “No doubt,” she said. “You see, the
human body—and these are just averages, mind you, depending on size and
so on and so forth—holds about six quarts of blood. The loss of about
forty percent or more of that volume will generally require immediate
resuscitation. But what you have to remember is the amount of blood loss any
one person can withstand is going to depend on their physical condition and
cardiovascular shape. Athletes, people who live in high altitudes and the
elderly are examples of differing groups that will have differing
susceptibilities to blood loss.

“The amount of blood we’re talking
about for that to happen…it’s about a two-liter sized bottle of soda pop. What
you’ve got in there is at least twice that. If it all belongs to the same
person, then, yeah, they’re dead all right. Deader than…”

__________

“
How soon before you
can
tell
us if it all belongs to the same person?” Miles asked.

Mimi bit the inside corner of her
lower lip. “Hmm, belonged, I think is the word you want there. Not very long at
all to type it out. Three days if you want to match the DNA from the personal
effects and we rush the shit out of it. You do want the DNA, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do,” Miles said. “Rush the
shit out of it.”

Mimi turned to go back to work,
then over her shoulder, “Hell of a way to start a new job, huh? Nice wheels
though. Bet that baby scoots.”

__________

“You talk to him yet?”
Rosencrantz asked.

“Who?”

He gave Miles a ‘Don’t try to
bullshit me’ look. “Who, my ass. Have you called him? Anything?”

“Cora asked me not to say anything until
she and Pearson had a chance to go over to his place and tell him face to face.”
Miles looked at his watch. “They’re probably still there.”

“Three things,” Rosencrantz said.
He ticked them off his fingers. “One, if you haven’t figured this out yet,
Pearson is a snake and now he’s
your
snake. I’d get used to it, I were
you
and
I’d watch my back. Two, Jonesy is not only a good guy, but he’s
our friend. At the very least you owe him a phone call and when I say at the
very least, I mean exactly that. Three, it is my belief that there might be
something else going on, politically speaking, that put him out and you in. You
may want to spend some time with that, you being the crack investigator and all.”

Miles reached up and flattened his
grey hair with the palm of his hand. “I know about Pearson. This won’t be my
first interaction with the man. And, I am going to speak with Jonesy, but I
thought it might be best to let things settle for a bit. Also, I’m not a
political guy. I’m an investigator guy. They tell me to investigate, that’s
what I do.”

Rosencrantz held his hands up,
palms out. “Hey, I’m not giving you grief, Ron, But this little squad we’ve got
here, our MCU, it’s always been run a little…sideways, if you know what I
mean.”

“If you mean you make your own
rules, keep the intel to yourselves and don’t have too much oversight, then
yeah, I’ve sort of noticed that. That might change too.”

Rosie shook his head. “That’s not
what I meant. What you said is true, but it’s more than that. You’re suddenly
one of the most powerful cops in the state with only two layers between you and
the governor himself.”

“And?”

“Have you asked yourself why they
wanted
you
for the job?”

Miles was starting to get a little
pissed. “You work for me, do I have that right?”

“Yep.”

“Then how about you do that?”

“Leave the big thinking to you?”

Miles pointed a finger at
Rosencrantz. “Now look…”

“Relax, Ron. I’m on your side. No
disrespect intended, okay? You’re one of the best investigators I’ve ever
known. I just want you to think about the situation. Investigate the ‘why me?’ part
of the equation, for your own sake if nothing else.”

“And maybe for Jonesy too?”

“Why not?”

“Because based on what I’ve heard,
I don’t think it will do him any good at this point.”

“Maybe it won’t. But I’ve been a
part of this group almost since its inception and if I’ve learned anything,
it’s this: We get the hard stuff, the political stuff, the good stuff, as Cora
likes to call it. But nothing is ever quite what it looks like. Not when you’re
this close to the top. Never has been anyway. Not one single time.”

Miles thought about that for a
minute. “Maybe this will be different…this one.”

Rosencrantz laughed without humor.
“Did you happen to get a look at Jonesy’s files yet? In particular, the one I
told you about?”

“Yeah, I did. What about it?”

“Anything jump out at you?”

“It looked like a good shoot. The
department, the union, the lawyers, hell even the OPR said it was a good shoot.
Plus, it was over twenty years ago. I had to blow the dust off the paper just
to see the ink.”

“Did you know that was the one and
only time Jonesy ever fired his weapon on the job?”

“That’s not so unusual.”

“You’re right about that. But let
me tell you two things that aren’t in that report. One, did you notice that the
guy who almost got his ticket punched by James Pope, the victim so to speak,
his name wasn’t listed in the report?”

“Yeah, I did notice that. Who was
it?”

Rosencrantz turned his back to
Miles for a moment and looked up at the apartment where the crime scene techs
were working. When he turned back he said, “Someone with enough juice to get their
name pulled from the paperwork. Know anyone like that?” Before Miles could
answer, Rosie said something else that made Ron wonder if someone he thought he
could trust hadn’t already played him for a fool. “That apartment behind us?
The one with all the blood? It belonged to a guy named Nicholas Pope. He was
only five or six years old when Jonesy shot his old man to death. He and his
twin sister were there, at the shooting. They saw the whole thing. Now it looks
like there’s another dead Pope. Might just be a coincidence though.”

Miles rubbed his temples with his
right hand, then squinted through one eye at Rosencrantz. “Who did Jonesy save
that day when he shot James Pope?”

“It’s not in the report, but it’s
not exactly a secret, either. The man he saved was Bradley Pearson.” Then, as
if to hammer home his point, he added, “Just out of curiosity, when they hired
you, who approached you first? Was it Cora, or Pearson?”

Miles let out a sigh. “It was Pearson.”

Rosencrantz raised an eyebrow at
him. “Might want to think about that. Or hell, maybe not. You might be right.
Maybe this one will be different.”

__________

Nicholas Pope’s apartment
complex
had
been converted from an old-style traveler’s motel. The conversion process had gone
something like this: The original owner of the motel went broke, which is
something that happens when you neglect to pay your income taxes. The new owner
picked up the building at the subsequent tax sale, fired the housekeeping crew
and erected a sign that said ‘Studio Apartments For Rent - No References Required.’
The only actual requirement for occupancy was cash in advance every Friday by
five or your personal belongings were tossed out on the lot and the locks were
changed faster than you could get to the payday advance loan sharks and back.
The building was a two-story, L-shaped structure with units on both the front
and the rear. Nicholas Pope’s unit was in the back on the second floor, about
midpoint in the short section of the L. The building was old and its occupants  generally
fit into one of three categories: Poor, transient, or illegal. Most, Ron
thought as he looked around the backside of the building, probably fit nicely
into all three.

“You going to suit up, take a
look?” Rosencrantz asked him.

“No. I think I’ll get with the
uniforms and coordinate with the background.”

“Start with the woman in the unit
right below Pope’s. She’s the one who made the call.”

“She hear or see anything?”

“Not really. But one of the city
uniforms said the blood dripped through her ceiling and landed right on a
little statue of the Virgin Mary she keeps on her living room coffee table. She
thought it was a miracle.”

Miles shook his head. “Ah, Christ.”

Rosencrantz winced. “Don’t say that
around her. She’ll take your head off.”

“How long before she figured it
wasn’t divine intervention?”

Rosencrantz thought for a few
seconds. “You know, I’m not sure. Probably at least a half-day, based on what
Mimi is telling us.”

Then, just as Miles was about to go
talk to the woman, a car turned the corner around the back side of the building
going much too fast, its tires squealing in protest. The driver slammed on the
brakes and locked up the wheels, but it was too late. The car slid into the
side of Miles brand new squad car with the sickening sound of crumpled sheet
metal and broken glass. The driver jumped from her vehicle and half ran, half
stumbled toward the stairs that led to Nicholas Pope’s apartment. She began to
scream, “My brother, my brother. Where’s my brother?” One of the uniforms
caught her by the arm, but Nichole Pope was a little faster and a little
stronger than the cop expected and when she tried to pull free, they got
tangled up in each other and they both ended up on the ground in a heap.

Rosencrantz looked at Miles, then at
his car, then back at Miles. “Probably shouldn’t have parked there. My car is
out front, across the street. Welcome to the MCU, Ron.”