"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 21

Monday, November 15th, 9:45 a.m.

            The desk of Det. Mike Cavanaugh had become even messier than he could have imagined possible. He sat behind the piles of clutter and listened as a rookie patrolman reviewed a list of breaking and entering suspects. Eight of the 10 names on the patrolman’s list were accounted for: two had been in custody in neighboring towns on unrelated charges at the time of Victor Strasser’s murder, while six had reasonable alibis, in the form of witnesses who vouched for their whereabouts during the hours when Victor most likely was shot. Only two still needed to be tracked down, and Mike encouraged the young officer to keep at it.

            As the officer turned to leave, Mike said, “Tell Vibbs to come see me.” Mike rubbed his temples and noted the double dose of Tylenol and black coffee were having no effect on his pounding headache. What I need, he thought, is to go on vacation and sleep for a week, then immediately go on another vacation so I can take a real vacation. But he knew there would be no vacation anytime soon, not as long as people were getting shot in the head in his town. He had worked every single day since Jitterbug Rivera was gunned down, and virtually around-the-clock since Marlene Strasser made her 9-1-1 call sixty-three hours earlier.

            A few minutes later Sergeant Rich Vibberts poked his head through the doorway of Mike’s cubicle. “You wanted to see me, sir?” he said.

            “Yeah Vibbs, come in.” Vibberts was one of the few officers not given a list of breaking and entering suspects to track down. He had been assigned to interview Marlene Strasser’s neighbors, to determine if anyone had seen or heard anything that might help the investigation. Det. Cavanaugh was getting frustrated, and not just because of his acute sleep deprivation and headache. Three stunning murders in a span of three weeks, and the West Hartford PD had not a single suspect yet. A couple of local punks, known to be low level cocaine dealers, at first were thought to be prime suspects in the shooting of Eddie Dykes. But it quickly became clear they were nowhere near the crime scene that particular evening. Since then the PD had come up empty. Not surprisingly, pressure from the public, the media, and grandstanding politicians continued to mount, making it even more difficult for the cops to do their job. The swirling rumors about mysterious vigilantes didn’t help either.

            “So what’d you find out?” Mike asked. “Anything interesting?”

            “Not really,” Vibberts answered. “That’s a really quiet neighborhood. Most of the people were at work all day. And because the houses are so spread out from one another, and set back from the road, the ones who were home didn’t really see anything.”

            The sergeant read from a notebook, reciting the names of people he interviewed so far, and summarized his findings after each name with quick phrases, such as, “Saw nothing,” “Sleeping all day,” “Was in the basement doing laundry,” “Elderly and deaf—wouldn’t’ve heard anything if a bomb went off next door,” etc.

            Towards the end of his list, Vibberts reported, “Mrs. Benedict—saw and heard nothing—told me she took her dog for a walk before lunch and saw a cable company van parked in front of the Feinberg house, Strasser’s next door neighbor.”

            “Really?” Det. Mike said, looking up. “Did you check it out? Maybe the cable guy saw something.”

            “Yeah, I got a call into Comcast. Haven’t heard back yet.”

            “OK,” Mike said. “Next.”

            Vibberts continued. “Mr. Aronson—really old guy—saw nothing—watched TV all day, with the sound turned up as loud as possible.” Vibberts smiled and shook his head.

            Just then Capt. Bradford walked into Det. Cavanaugh’s cubicle. “Where do we stand?” he asked gruffly. “Any of the B&E scum look promising?”

            “Um, nothing yet, sir,” Mike said, as he sat up straight in his chair, trying to appear more alert and focused than he really felt. “We still have a few more on our list to track down. The men are really working hard to get through the whole list.”

            “All right, keep me posted,” Bradford said.

            “Vibbs here has been checking out the neighborhood,” Mike added without being asked. “Nothing so far, except one neighbor saw a cable TV truck parked near the Strasser house. We’re gonna check to see if—”

            “Nah, don’t bother,” Bradford interrupted. The other two cops stared at the captain, their furrowed brows silently asking the question, Why not?

            Bradford paused. His lips were pursed. Then he said, “Um, no need to. McGee already talked to the guy. Saw nothing. Wasn’t any help to us.”

            “Oh, good,” Mike said with relief. “One less guy to track down.”

            “Keep me posted, understand?” Bradford said. Then he turned and walked out.

            “Yes sir,” Mike said a bit flippantly, knowing the captain was already far out of earshot, “We will keep you posted. Sir.” He looked at the sergeant, shook his head, and said, “OK Vibbs, let me know if anything turns up.”

            The sergeant exited the cubicle, and Det. Cavanaugh began organizing small, neat stacks of file folders and other papers, trying to bring some order to the chaos. They’re gonna come in one morning and find me dead in here, he thought, crushed to death under a mountain of file folders that fell on top of me.

            About ten minutes later, Sergeant Vibberts returned. “Sir, you got a minute?” he said quietly as he entered the cubicle again.

            “Sure, what’s up?”

            “Well, uh,” the sergeant began, “Comcast returned my call. The service dispatcher. Said they were never at the Feinberg house on Friday. They didn’t have any appointments scheduled anywhere on that street.”

            “Really?” Mike said, rubbing his hand on his chin. “Do they keep separate records? You know, service calls versus new installations?” he asked.

            “I asked him,” came the reply. “The guy checked all the jobs they did on Friday. Nothing.”

            “Then who did McGee talk to?” Mike asked the wall quietly, knowing the sergeant had no answer. “Weird.”

            “He accounted for all his vehicles,” Vibberts continued. “They were all busy on Friday—but not at the Feinbergs’ house. I dunno, maybe a truck stopped there but the guy just forgot to fill out his paperwork. Oh, all the trucks were busy except for one,” he corrected himself. “One van was in the shop for service, he told me.”

            Mike continued to gaze at the wall, trying to think. “Thanks, Vibbs,” he said finally.

            “Sure,” Vibberts said as he turned. Then he stopped and looked back. “Oh, one other thing. The Feinbergs are in Europe. I checked. They’ve been gone three weeks now, and aren’t due home till Thanksgiving.”

            Mike turned and looked at him, even more puzzled. The sergeant asked, “Who has the cable guy come to your house, with or without paperwork, when you’re not even home?”

            Mike shrugged. “Weird,” he said again. “Really weird.”

            “Brake job,” the sergeant offered.

            “Huh?” Mike grunted.

            “I’m trying to remember everything the Comcast guy just told me,” Vibberts said, somewhat defensively. “Um, the van that was in for service had a brake job. Wilkins Ford. That’s everything he told me, sir.”

            Mike nodded, signaling that the sergeant was dismissed. As he nodded, his eyes grew wide. “Damn!” he muttered under his breath. “Damn, damn, damn!” The dealer plate! he scolded himself silently in his head. My buddy at DMV! Wilkins Ford! I totally forgot to check it out! “Damn!” he muttered one more time.

            Quickly he began to sort through file folders, looking for one thin file that contained exactly one sheet of paper. On that sheet of paper was written information provided by his friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles, along with the number of a dealer plate that may or may not have been—according to some anonymous kid who spoke to his brother, the priest—affixed to the back bumper of the car driven by the person who gunned down Jitterbug Rivera.

            “Damn,” Mike muttered again, this time a bit louder. “This always happens,” he grumbled. “When my office is a pig sty, I know where everything is. As soon as I clean up a little, I can’t find anything!” He methodically deconstructed the neat piles of folders he had just built, frantically looking in the thin ones and ignoring the thick ones.

            Finally he exclaimed, “Ah ha!” He closed the manila folder he held tightly in his hands, after scanning the single piece of yellow lined paper it contained. He clutched the folder to his chest with his right hand and reached for the jacket on a hook with his left. He quickly exited the cubicle, hop-scotching past file folders scattered on the floor. Mike Cavanaugh’s cubicle now truly looked like an explosion in a Staples store.

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