DIRTBAG CHAPTER 21

    Two weeks later, Cecil was slowly walking into the Palo Alto police department lobby and the receptionist who saw him first said, “Hey, it’s Cecil!”
    People were flocking around him to welcome him back.
    “We weren’t expecting you until Thursday.  That’s when we’re throwing you a party,” a fat lady said.
    “Fine, fine,” Cecil said, and “thank you, does Elaine know I’m here?”
    She came out of her office and greeted him.
    “Cecil!”  She sounded overly excited.  “It’s good to see you… back so soon?  Come in, sit down.”  She said graciously.
    Sitting down was now an elaborate procedure; Cecil pulled out an air pillow and proceeded to inflate it.
    While he did this, Elaine closed her office door and asked, “Are you sure you’re ready to come back to work?”
    “What sitting on my ass and reading reports, you bet.” Cecil inserted the stopper and sat down on the doughnut shaped cushion, then asked Elaine, “So what have I missed?  Fill me in.”
    “Woodman and Carlos are in Drug rehab.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    Her solemn eyes had not a hint of humor.
    “What about Moore?”
    “He’s suspended for three days.”
    “For the incident with Stuart?”
    “No,” she said, “for disobeying a direct order, commandeering a city vehicle for unauthorized use, among other things.”
    “What happened with the food tampering case?  Didn’t Stuart file a grievance against Moore?”
    “Yes, well, an IA investigator interviewed the wrong chef at the restaurant where Moore was accused of putting a laxative in Stuart’s food.  So the investigator returned to the scene of the crime and re-interviewed the actual chef who was working the day of the incident, and the cook said he was having stomach pains that day and he put an open container of Phillips Milk of Magnesia on the shelf above the stove.  He said, it must have spilled into her food when he wasn’t looking, food her waitress served to her before the cook noticed the laxative container had tipped over.  By then, he said, it was too late and Stuart did have Magnesium Hydroxide in her system, a chemical found in Phillips Milk of Magnesia, proving the cook accidentally put it in her food.
    “That was a hell of a thing to put poor George through, especially when he wasn’t even in the cafe that day,” Cecil said, shaking his head at the futility of it all: what a waste of time, he thought and said, “Let’s talk about the double homicide at Nigel Mann’s place.”
    Elaine told him, Nigel Mann acted alone.
    Cecil went “hun.”  Something occurred to him.
    “What?”   Elaine asked.
    He looked at her and said, “Are you taking into account all the evidence?”
    “Yes, and it’s overwhelming.”
    “Doesn’t Nigel’s death seems awful convenient; after all, dead men tell no tales.” 
    Elaine looked at him like, come on?  “Samples of his writing were compared with the suicide note he left behind and they were a match.”
    “Tell me about the second victim, ah, Dorothy Wilson.”
    “A friend of Mary’s, who called in her hour of need: Dorothy’s phone records indicate a phone call to Mary shortly before her death.  She was an unfortunate witness to the horrible crime scene in the basement and Nigel had to eliminate her by any means possible, in this case, the shovel he was using to dig Mary’s grave.  That’s why the MO was different from the first victim, but in that case, he also used something handy to strangle Mary: his tie.”
    “And you’re sure Nigel Mann was responsible for both murders?”
    “Without a doubt, we believe he killed Mary, after he raped her, to prevent her from testifying against him.”
    “I thought the ME concluded she wasn’t raped.”
    “His conclusions were based on male bias and nothing concrete.  He was undecided at first and his decision was arbitrary at best.  I think there is a case to be made for rape.”
    “I want to look into this.”  He said voraciously, hungry to see the evidence for himself.
    “Feel free, but do it on your own time.”  She looked at him to see if he understood and he nodded compliantly.  “I think you’ll find the case against Nigel Mann is pretty iron clad.  He’s our guy.  He killed those girls.”
    “You really think he acted alone?”
    “There’s no evidence of anyone else in the basement.”
    “What about the bloody footprint?  Was it a match?”
    He meant the bloody footprint found in the basement: was it a match to one of Nigel’s shoes, but she ignored the question and said, “Look Cecil, you can go over the evidence, but the case is closed.  As far as we’re concerned: the double homicide is solved.”
    Her serious, unflappable expression stopped Cecil cold.  Her objection to hearing any open minded speculation seemed severe to him, like she wanted this case to go away.  That was unusual.  In the past she always looked at all the evidence, conducted a thorough investigation and paid close attention to detail, at least she used to.  He wanted to ask her, “What happened to you?”

    That afternoon, Cecil was on the floor below ground in the police station, in a small carpeted room, with a one way mirror, the ADA and defense lawyer turned to see the detective and his boss, Elaine come into the darkened room, giving them a friendly warm welcome.  Most of the light was on the suspects, standing on the other side of the one way mirror in a line-up.
    Cecil looked over each man standing in a row: six men, of varying heights, stature and strength, age: 40 to 50.
    Mike Aaron, the man who named his co-conspirators stood among them.
    Cecil looked them over twice, examining each one carefully, but…
    “If you’re not sure,” the defense attorney said, ready to pounce, “maybe…”
    “Let him be.”  The ADA shooed him away and told Cecil, “Take your time.”
    He was like Mr. Magoo, trying to see through his thick specks, scrutinizing the suspects, squinting his eyes and getting closer to the glass.
    John had each suspect step-up, so Cecil could see them better, but it was no use.  “I’m sorry.”  Cecil said and looked right at the ADA, who felt his whole case crumbling in his hands.  John had an expression of horror and dismay.
    “I’m sorry.”  Cecil repeated.  It was all he could say, so he left the room, wishing he had picked the guy out, giving the defense attorney a cold stare.

    Cecil got no further than the wide hallway outside the observation room, when the ADA caught up with him.  By all appearances, John was a content and sensible man, but the gray hairs crossing over his balding scalp told another story of a stressful job wearing him down: years of indifference to the guilt or innocence of a defendant made him cynical and callus and it showed in the lines on his face.
    “What was that?  You trying to sabotage my case?”
    Cecil turned to face him.  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t recognize any of them.”
    “This is unbelievable.”
    “It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”  Cecil continued, as Elaine joined them.  “I’m sure if George says he saw the man, then he was there.”
    “Well, I’m sorry, but George has been suspended and doesn’t make the best witness right now.  You were our star, Cecil, without you…”  John said.
    A tense moment of silence followed as the defense attorney went by them.
    The ADA said in confidence, “We needed you to say he was the man who  abducted you.  Without your eyewitness testimony, all we have is a spot of blood on a jacket, that may or may not belong to you at this point.”
    “Don’t you think he knows?”  Cecil caught a look from the ADA that was more of a question.  “Maybe it isn’t my blood.  Maybe that’s why he’s playing it so cool.”
    The ADA looked at him like, what are doing, trying to ruin my case?  But he knew the answer.  Cecil was just an honest guy, who wanted to consider all the facts, but John knew how a lot of superfluous facts could muddy the water, and help the defendant.  However, the detective was hardly a superfluous fact.  “This is my case now.  Don’t fuck it up.”  The ADA knew Cecil didn’t like swear swords.  That’s why he used one, then walked away, clutching his leather valise in a hand that could be a fist.

    As he saw his case against Mike Aaron weaken, John thought he would be lucky to get a conviction, when he received a call from the defendant’s lawyer.  They wanted to talk.  John couldn’t believe it.  Was his luck about to change?
    Meeting in a cage, Mike Aaron sat at a metal table, while the ADA sat across from him.
    The defense attorney started things off.  “My client wants full immunity.”
    “And,” John said, “I want a house on the hill, but on my salary…”
    “He gives you everyone involved.”
    “You give me everyone and I mean everyone involved, I will reduce the charges…  I will drop the aggravated kidnapping charge down to a simple kidnapping.  He does the max: twenty-five years.”
    “Come on?  For a first offense?  This man is a war hero.  He has a stellar record.”
    The ADA stared bullets: “Fifteen years,” he reluctantly said, “but he tells us everything: everyone involved.”
    The defense lawyer said, “We don’t even know if that drop of blood on his jacket will be a match to Buddy Cecil.”  He glanced at his client, who knew the answer to that question and the answer was yes, it was Cecil’s blood and he knew how it got there, when he pulled the needle out of his neck.  One thing he wasn’t sure about, was how the jacket ended up in his crawl space, when he remembered throwing it in a dumpster behind Kentucky Fried Chick’n.
    Mr. Aaron was beginning to perspire.  “These people…”  He  began, “these people you don’t inform on.  If you do, they cut your throat.”
    “Name the others involved, or no deal.”
    “They’ll come after me.”  Reluctant and tight lipped, Mike said. “I’ll need protection.”
    The ADA said, “We can put you in protective custody.”
    His hardened features, eventually relented.  “Besides myself, Alexander Royal, Stacy Sones and Larry Osbourne…  The doctor’s name was Tory Johnson.”
    “How did you find a doctor willing to do this?”
    Mike scoffed.  “Let’s just say he was known in certain circles and his reputation was less than stellar.”
    “You don’t get to be oblique here.  Here you tell me everything!”
    “Okay.  Osbourne knew a drug pusher, who said he sold to this doctor.  We didn’t meet him.  That was all arranged by someone else, a Josh somebody.”
    “Josh Henderson?”
    “Yeah, I thinks that it.  He gave Osbourne our directive: to deliver the package.”
    “You mean Cecil?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where to?”
    “A place on East Bayshore Road, in East Palo Alto.”
    The ADA smiled for the first time in a while.  The link was made between the abductors, Josh Henderson, who managed the operation on Cecil and the location where the surgery took place.  He asked Mike, “Were all the abductors members of this motorcycle gang, the Junk Yard Dogs?”
    “Yeah, except for the doctor.”
    “So your gang was behind Cecil’s abduction?”
    Aaron was sweating profusely and said, “Yes, but I just became a gang member recently.  I don’t know everyone’s name, just the three I gave you.”
    The detective wasn’t sure he believed him.  “Why?  Why take out a blackened piece of skin from Cecil’s chest?  Who wanted it and why?”
    He didn’t know, but he knew one thing: the surgeon should have a pretty good idea.



 Copyright 2016  William Leslie