45. Bertha

The arrest of Jenny Ferguson and Eddie Guzman did not solve all Kent's problems, it only started a new phase. Michael was still missing, and there was considerable question about what the special prosecutor would do once Illinois extradited the suspects. As Rankowski in Hammond had suggested, the crime specified on the warrant mattered a lot; SSERT would still have gone after them, but courts handle drug cases a lot differently from murders. Corporal Kwiatkowski's affidavit, that the victim could not have survived the beating he took in Mud Pine, was crucial when Kent talked the Benton County judge into signing those murder warrants—but it wouldn't be definitive at trial. From the moment of the arrests, Kent's influence diminished and the prosecutor's rose; "Law and Order" is a two-part drama.

Kent wanted murder charges and no less. But he heard through the grapevine that the special prosecutor might be having second thoughts. It would be easy enough to convict Eddie and Grandma on the meth charges; he may have done the cooking, but she was the householder and it probably wouldn't take much to convict them both of selling the stuff. The drug felonies alone were worth 30 years, on paper anyway. Maybe the retired prosecutor wanted to leave it at that.

Meanwhile the issue was Michael. Kent wasn't assigned to a drug investigation, his orders from Major Slaughter were to find that boy. Kent hadn't worked at all on who actually administered the beating; he figured Jenny would blame Eddie, her own son, and he'd turn around and say it was her.

They both had motive, means and opportunity, living in the same house with the victim. Kent halfway favored charging them both with the killing and letting the judge and jury sort it out. But that was because he didn't have evidence.

He was inclined to think Eddie might have done the beating, just because he was younger and male. Michael's mother Debbie had said Eddie was "capable of anything," and Mrs. Timmons saw him take a board to that girl in the front yard.

But Kent didn't believe that was how it happened. Grandma was the evil one, he thought; Randy was an eyewitness that day on the porch when Michael had to stand on the board, holding heavy books while his grandmother mocked him. Kent would have to check with Randy again, which he didn't look forward to, to find out whether Michael ever blamed Eddie for what he went through.

To Kent, Grandma was the leader; Eddie was just a lazy slob with an ice cream sandwich.

But there were other possibilities, namely Jack Dawson. Maybe they'd both blame him; maybe he did it, Kent didn't know. At the moment he saw Dawson as the accomplice who supervised wiping up the blood, and maybe transported the body. The most outstanding thing about him was the public lies that Jamie'd exposed; his talk about Gypsies and coloreds and license plates, then calling off the search parties, "Jack Dawson's found that boy, in West Virginia with his mother."

Besides, how did the news about that first search warrant get from the prosecutor and judge to the sheriff?

This was a big case, with at least four perps, and Kent knew a lot less than he needed to. All he had so far was Grandma and Eddie in jail temporarily and the sheriff bonded out.

Kent called Plant City, Florida and located one Bertha Shreve; for all he knew she was a Latin King too. Her daughter married that corrupt sheriff who continued to manage Bertha's properties. "Ma'am, Sgt. Kent Kessler of the Indiana State Police. How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine. Good weather here. This is about my car, I suppose."

"Your car and that house you rented with the meth lab. Your general property here in Mud Pine, Indiana, ma'am. I'm calling to find out if you intend to cooperate on the stolen car case against your former son-in-law."

She was quiet for a second. "I sure do."

"It won't help us at all if you back out. Tell me, why did Jack Dawson have a set of keys to your white Buick?"

"He didn't have keys as such. He had keys for my house, for all my properties. I left my car keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen."

"So you never authorized him to use your vehicle."

"No, sir, I did not. Only in an emergency, if my house was on fire or something. Not to just be driving around town or lend it to that woman. I never saw her in my life, why should he give her my car?"

"Did Jack ever give you other reasons to be concerned about how he managed your affairs? Either when you're at home, or down there in Florida? Is this the first time something like this has happened?"

"Well, I'm not necessarily happy with him, but the only real complaint I've had is that he's been slow sometimes to fix things in the rentals. If the tenants can't reach him they call me; my name's the one on the rent checks, as if I'd know what to do when the furnace goes out. So I'd have to get after him about it."

"Has he been honest with your rent monies?"

"Yes."

"Did he collect in person or do the tenants mail your checks?"

"Mrs. Ferguson's the only one he collects in person. Everybody else mails their check."

"Would Mrs. Ferguson write a check to you, then?"

"Oh no, she always paid cash. He'd give me a stack of twenties from her."

"What was her rent again?"

"Four hundred and fifty dollars."

"Was she prompt?"

"Oh yeah, never any trouble. Some of the others would use up the five-day grace period, but I don't mind that so much."

"So he collected cash every month from Mrs. Ferguson."

"That's right."

"And you'll cooperate when I charge him with stealing your vehicle?"

"Cooperate? I'll have you over for dinner. So will my daughter, she can't stand that man."

"Why not?"

"Well, I'd really like this not to come out."

"I'll do my best not to say anything, Mrs. Shreve. But I need to know about that guy."

"He used to beat her. Put her in the hospital once. He'd be out with another woman, then come home drunk and light into her when she asked him where he'd been."

"He put your daughter in a real bad spot. Him being the sheriff and all."

"He sure did."

"Then why did you have him work for you once they split up?"

She sighed heavily. "I suppose I was wrong. Maybe it was stupid. But I always tried, whenever they had problems, to not take sides. I mean, I know some parents, they get in the middle every time their married kids have an argument. They end up making it worse 'cause they're always on their daughter's side, she can do no wrong and all that. Christie's my daughter, but let me tell you, she's no saint, and I always tried to stay out of it. When they split up I supported her. But as long as there was any chance they'd get back together, I wasn't going to tell him off; divorce is a sin, you know, the Church always teaches that. Then after the divorce was final, what could I do? He was never bad to me, he was only bad to her. I needed someone to look after those properties and he'd always done it before; if I needed him to collect the rent, who better than the county sheriff?"

"I understand. It doesn't sound like your daughter's relevant to this case, and I won't say a word about it without telling you first. No reason I can see that she ought to be dragged into this."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd leave her out of it. I know, I should have fired his behind. My house, a place I own for my retirement, turned into some kind of a drug place! And he's the county sheriff."

She didn't sound much like a Latin King, so he thanked her and asked the special prosecutor for two more warrants on Jack Dawson.

"What for?" the retired judge asked.

"Stolen car and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. This time, let's ask for a nice high bail. That sheriff's a danger, connected to the drug trade. We don't want someone like that walking around with a badge and a gun, a whole police force at his disposal." The prosecutor agreed, so that helped.

Once all three defendants got back to Tippecanoe County, Kent could do jailhouse interviews to find out what their latest stories were. Maybe Dawson would blame that impounded Buick on coloreds and Gypsies.

Kent called Cpl. Kwiatkowski and asked her to plan on examining the trunk of that car for bloodstains, fibers and human hair. She'd be going up against another lawman in the sheriff, but it's very difficult to vacuum up every trace of a dead body stuffed into a car trunk, with all the odd angles and cubbyholes for tools and a spare tire. He also inquired about the two-by-four. She said, "I should be able to get to it in a couple of weeks. I'm sorry for the delay, but this dang governor thinks spending money is evil and the tests all run themselves."

He told her he understood, and started wondering why he'd voted for this governor. Because he had an R behind his name and I didn't know no better.

Jamie, I ain't gonna vote for 'em just 'cause they got a D either. But I'll give 'em a better look than I used to. Sorry, baby, I just never thought about this stuff before.

Then he drove to The Mud, looking for discarded carpet from that trunk. He didn't find it at Ferguson's or Mrs. Shreve's either. It was probably in a landfill by now; he'd be curious if it was still in the Buick.

From there he got back in his unit and played FTO with his rookies all afternoon. It was fun, he enjoyed them, all full of questions and half-dying of envy, that their training officer got to ride in that armored personnel carrier up in Cal City and take down a couple of killers. When they made it sound like he did it all by himself, he didn't strictly correct the record; one time, yes, but after that he saved his breath.++