I decided I’d check my messages and then go home. I figured that it wouldn’t take too long, and that I could still get home for a late dinner with Sammy, my mother, and the Judge.
I was, ultimately, wrong about the length of time I’d spend at the office, but I was right about Schmitty finally returning my phone calls.
“Want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” Schmitty was not happy at all. He started talking the moment I answered the phone. “Thought we were on the same team, had an understanding.”
I didn’t match his intensity, although I was tempted to come back at him by pointing out his failure to update me on the investigation. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Schmitty.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m so glad you don’t think you did anything wrong. Within seconds of that little speech you gave, Chief Wilson was up my ass, calling you a traitor. Said you were inciting violence.”
“There was no violence.”
“Not right then. Not right now,” he said. “Wait till tonight.”
“Tonight’s going to be no different than every night for the past two weeks,” I said. “You guys need transparency. You need to communicate.”
“Transparency?” Schmitty was still agitated. “You’re smarter than that. It’s a damn investigation. You don’t tell the public how and when you are investigating a dozen murders.”
“Well maybe you need to communicate with me. That would be a start.” There, I’d laid it on the table.
Schmitty grunted. “Surprised by you, man,” he said. “Thought you were different than your brother, playing games.”
“I don’t have to take that, Schmitty,” I said. “Been working hard, asking nothing in return. You asked me to do this, remember? I know these families. I talk with these families all the time now, and they deserve better.” I collected my thoughts. “And don’t criticize my brother to me. He is what he is, and I am what I am.”
There was silence, and neither one of us wanted to fill it. If I waited long enough, I knew that Schmitty would break. Whether he felt betrayed or not, the police needed me on their side.
At last, Schmitty cleared his throat. “You just gotta give me a heads-up when you do stuff like that, that’s all,” he said. “I’d been meaning to call you, but there’s been a lot going on.”
“Good,” I said. “Glad you agree. If there’s stuff happening, you need to tell me that. Give me direction. We can get the feedback loop going again.”
“Fine.” He was cooling off. “But the chief is going to have my ass if there are any more surprises. I’ll give you some more information, but you leave the real investigating to us.”
I wasn’t going to promise that, so I deflected. “Seems like I’m the only one doing the real investigating.”
“Glass.” Schmitty sounded offended. “Give me a break, man. You know that’s not true. Easy to believe, but you know that’s not true. I can give you what I can, but more important, I want to prevent you from embarrassing yourself, like today.”
“Embarrass?” I shook my head. “You think I embarrassed myself?”
“I do,” Schmitty said. “Because Jimmy Poles ain’t the guy. All that shit in front of the JJC, calling for his arrest, calling for an indictment, it ain’t going to happen.”
“I didn’t call for an indictment.”
“But your people did,” he said.
My people, I thought.
Schmitty continued. “We aren’t going down that road, because Poles didn’t do it.”
The news took a moment to register, and, when it did, it hit hard. I wasn’t going to accept it. “Everything points at him.”
“No,” Schmitty said. “The little bit we knew used to point toward him, past tense. Now it doesn’t.”
I folded my arms across my chest and leaned back in my chair, the phone still pressed to my ear. “Elaborate.”
“We followed up on the interview that you did with Turner,” he said. “We looked at the JJC records for the night that the kid saw his brother get in that blue van. There were calls made by the mother to the JJC, we got records of that, just like you said we would. The mama called, but Jimmy Poles was on a float trip in the Ozarks that weekend.”
“Are there witnesses for this alibi?”
“A half dozen rednecks,” Schmitty said. “They all say he was with them.”
“A half dozen rednecks would say—”
“There’s also credit card receipts for food and the property damage agreement for the cabin where they stayed. Poles signed it.”
“He could be working with other people.” I was grasping at straws and knew it. Jimmy Poles was far from a criminal mastermind. I doubted that any of his buddies were, either. Weakly, I kept reaching for an alternative. “Couldn’t that all be faked?”
“The receipts and the thing from the cabin are legit.” Schmitty remained patient. “We did a warrant for his phone records, got all the cell tower information, too.”
I knew from defending clients that cell phone records and cell tower information had been a major boost to law enforcement in recent years. Every cell phone has a GPS tracker in it, which allows the mapping apps to work and the phone to locate the nearest cell phone tower to relay calls. “And?”
“Poles, or at least his phone, was in the Ozarks, like he said. It was pinging off the cell towers along the Missouri?Arkansas border the entire time.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t kill the others.”
“Except we got all his records.” Schmitty sighed. “Guy has had the same cell phone company for five years, and he has never been anywhere near Castlewood State Park. If he goes anywhere, it’s either fishing in Troy or down south to the Ozarks. That’s it.”
“Well maybe he just knows better than to take his phone with him.” But I was running on fumes, I knew. The news had gone from bad to worse. The high I had felt after the march was gone, and now I was just confused. I sunk a little lower in my seat. “What now?”
“We’re looking at rival gangs, but that seems like a stretch,” Schmitty said. “After today, you seem to be the expert. You tell me.”
“Whatever.” I hung up the phone and ran my hand hard across the back of my neck, trying to work out the knots that had formed. I closed my eyes, trying to think of my next move, but nothing came. I decided to give it a little more time. Maybe something would come after a good night’s sleep.
I’d just stood up when the brick flew through my window, showering the floor with broken glass.
Expecting more, I ducked down. But nothing happened.
I got up, ran around my desk, and yanked open the front door. I expected to hear the squealing tires of a pickup truck or see a mob of skinheads who had seen me on television, but there was none of that. The street was empty and dead quiet.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT