The Blind Pig Read online

  “No, no,” the mayor said, “I want to hear them, John. These were brave men who died in the line of duty and I think the City of Detroit owes them a debt of gratitude and condolences to their loved ones.”

  “Well, this is what I'm going to release to the press, sir,” Weinberg said to the commissioner, “and, naturally, they want all the names. As it is, I'm leaving out the ages of the victims. I didn't think you'd want that.”

  “Very well,” the commissioner said, “go ahead.”

  “Now, where was I?” Weinberg looked at his papers. “Oh, yes . . . the gatekeeper—Keester—was presented with a bill of lading, possibly, or else he was threatened with a weapon. At any rate, he opened the gate. There is no evidence of a struggle, nor did he make any attempt to signal for help.”

  “Is there any chance that this Keester was collaborating with the hijackers?” the commissioner asked.

  “Well, since he was murdered by the hijackers, it doesn't look likely,” Weinberg said, “but, of course, sir, that is a possibility we did not ignore. But Keester seems to have been a very stable, circumspect employee of Silver Security. He'd been with them for twelve years. He was happily married and had seven children—”

  “Possibly he needed money,” the commissioner said, “with seven kids.”

  There was dutiful laughter throughout the conference room. The commissioner smiled complacently. Even the mayor smiled.

  “Possibly,” Weinberg said, “but he worked another job as well. He was a night guard at a liquor store on Dexter Boulevard. So we think he was able to support his large family, all right. Shall I go on?”

  The commissioner nodded and Weinberg continued. Mulheisen drowsed. It was warm and close in the conference room, and the heat had caused him to dream about summer. He dreamed that he was repainting the hull of his catboat, a gaff-rigged nineteen-footer. The sun was warm, but occasionally a cool whiff from the river would chill him. He woke up, feeling gritty-eyed and foul-mouthed. There was a bead of sweat under his chin. He groaned softly. McClain looked at him and grunted, apparently in commiseration. “You look like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag,” McClain whispered. Mulheisen nodded weakly.

  “Once the guard was safely stowed in the boxcar, along with the train crew, another man in uniform took Keester's place in the guard shack, at least for a few minutes while the train entered the Cadillac Gage rear yard and coupled onto a loaded boxcar that was sitting next to the loading dock. In this boxcar there were twenty-four hundred Stoner rifles, of the type designated the Stoner 63 Weapons System, along with five hundred thousand rounds of ammunition for the weapons.” He went on to explain just what the Stoner 63 Weapons System was, and estimated the value of the shipment in excess of $2.5 million. During this portion of the briefing, ATF Agent Phelps stood and pointed out salient aspects of the Stoner 63 on a large chart illustrating the weapon in a cutaway drawing.

  Weinberg now described how the boxcar had been moved to Gethsemane Cemetery, next to the City Airport, and unloaded into at least one truck, probably a semi-tractor trailer. As yet, no witnesses had come forward to describe the truck, and it was uncertain how the hijackers had dispersed from that point, unless it was in the phantom truck itself.

  “The boxcar was uncoupled and left in the cemetery,” Weinberg said, “and train 1013 was put into reverse, the throttle locked into a ‘full’ position, and the train abandoned by the hijackers. We presume that the hijackers who operated the train escaped with the rest in the semi. We also believe that the act of sending the unattended train back down the tracks at high speed, with the tragic result of the derailment that killed five men, was a vicious, callous, premeditated act of murder for the casual purpose of diverting police attention from the robbery.

  “Ordinarily a runaway train can be stopped by automatic braking devices. In this case, however, since the hijackers were still in control of Vernor tower, the train was not stopped. The train hit the Chrysler loading yards at full speed, with the tragic results that we all know. All of the men in the boxcar were killed outright. It was, as I am sure you all appreciate, a particularly brutal and callous act on the part of the hijackers.”

  At a signal, Phelps rose and addressed the audience. “I have established to my satisfaction the identity of the hijackers,” he said. Everyone sat up, except Mulheisen.

  “A few months ago an undercover Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent established contact with a group of Cuban displaced persons, all young men who had lived here in Detroit for some time. These men were part of a South American-organized conspiracy to invade and overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba. They were attempting to purchase guns here in the United States. The agent was to be part of the undercover gun deal, but the agent was never taken fully into the confidence of the conspirators. As of yesterday, the agent has disappeared, and so have the Cubans. For obvious reasons, I don't believe that it would be politic to disclose the name of the agent at this time.”

  “That's the understatement of the week,” McClain muttered to Mulheisen. A chill spread over Mulheisen as he realized that what McClain said was true: just the bare statement by Phelps had seriously endangered Mandy Cecil's life. Whom else could the conspirators suspect, when they came to read Phelps's statement in the newspapers? Mulheisen shook his head in disbelief.

  “I have issued an all-points bulletin for the arrest of twelve men whom we have identified from our agent's reports.”

  Phelps then read a list of names, including DeJesus, Morazon and Casabianco. “We have prepared a brief bio on each man and it will be appended to the handouts you will receive after this briefing.”

  “Pretty slick, eh?” McClain whispered. “These Feds like to do it up brown.”

  Weinberg was back on his feet. “That's about it,” he said. “As of now, there is no civil emergency. Conditions have been returned to normal, and we feel fortunate that there was not more damage or loss of life from the derailment.

  “Homicide is in charge of the murders, with assistance from ATF, the FBI, and some precinct detectives. ATF has taken command of the hijacking itself. What you have heard this morning is basically the information that will be released to the media"—he glanced at his watch—"in a few minutes. If any of you feel that you need more information, please contact the proper bureau or agency, or myself. Thank you.”

  There was a moment when Mulheisen thought that applause would break out in the audience, but it passed.

  Phelps appeared at Mulheisen's side. Mulheisen didn't quibble: “You sure blew Mandy's cover, didn't you?”

  Phelps didn't react. “If her cover isn't blown by now, it means she isn't with the hijackers. Did you see Vanni?”

  “I stopped by his office,” Mulheisen said, lighting a cigar. “Cecil wasn't there, neither was DenBoer. It was kind of early, though. Vanni was irritated, but not alarmed. He didn't see either of them after they left the office yesterday afternoon, he says. I asked him to come in to the precinct this afternoon, with Cecil and DenBoer.”

  “Well, I'll leave Vanni and DenBoer to you,” Phelps said. “We're pretty busy hunting for DeJesus and his pals.” He looked pensive for a moment. “It would be nice to know if Vanni is really a part of this or not.”

  “Why don't you pick him up?” Mulheisen suggested. “Federal business sometimes scares punks like him.”

  “I don't have time,” Phelps said. “Besides, it's your case. You're legitimately investigating him about the dead burglar, the shoot-out, and now this break-in last night. You can reasonably lean on him a little. All I've got on him is the fact that he was on the air base at the time the M-16s were stolen. For that matter, DenBoer was there, too.”

  “He was! You didn't tell me that,” Mulheisen said.

  “He was driving one of the trucks for Vanni. I didn't mention that?” Phelps shrugged. “I tend to overlook DenBoer sometimes.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. Good luck, Sergeant.” He patted Mulheisen on the shoulder. The gesture annoyed Mulheisen; it seemed pat
ronizing. Phelps was back across the room shaking hands with the mayor and the commissioner.

  Lieutenant Moser, from the 15th, came up to Mulheisen. “What a load of crap! Now I have to attend a ‘mini-briefing'! You ever hear of such a thing? These guys are organization-happy. After the mini-briefing I suppose they'll want us to break up into encounter groups.”

  Mulheisen laughed. “Find anything else at the cemetery, Del?”

  “Not much. We're calling funeral homes about a funeral party.”

  “There wasn't any funeral yesterday at Gethsemane,” Mulheisen said. “I thought I told you that. I checked with the corporation.”

  “You did tell me, but maybe you better check again. Half a dozen people in the neighborhood saw a small funeral procession in the cemetery, or near it, at about the right time.”

  “That could be the way the hijackers dispersed,” Mulheisen said. “Who are you checking with?”

  “I had the boys start with nearby and most frequent users of the cemetery, among the funeral homes. There's a hell of a lot of undertakers in this town, Mul!”

  Mulheisen agreed. “Who's running this mini-briefing?” he asked Moser.

  “McClain. Phelps is supposed to drop in, to ‘coordinate our activities,’ as he put it.”

  Mulheisen smiled. “Ask Mac—or Phelps—if anyone checked the City Airport out.”

  “You think they might have escaped by airplane?”

  “Phelps mentioned that one of the Cubans—DeJesus—had been a pilot. It's worth a try. Well, see you later. Have fun at the mini-briefing.”

  Mulheisen was glad to be outside, even if it was a windy, chilly day. The sun was out and there were a few ragged cumulus clouds being chased past the towers of the Renaissance Center, a few blocks away. He began to revive in the brisk air. Passing by the Recorders Court, he decided to pop in and see how the Parenteau case was progressing.

  He met Ray Wilde just coming out of the courtroom. “All over?” Mulheisen asked, surprised.

  “Yep,” Wilde said. “Bobby skated. Brownlow bought the whole package. He hasn't announced his sentence yet, but I don't have any illusions. It'll be the State Hospital at worst, and possibly outpatient.”

  “You didn't use the homosexual angle,” Mulheisen said.

  Wilde shook his head. “It wouldn't have helped. Brown-low's hip enough to believe in insanity, but he wouldn't believe that a fag could kill someone out of jealousy. To him, homosexuality is itself an indication of insanity. Oh, well, that's the last time Epstein gets a break from the prosecutor's office. Thanks for the testimony, anyway, Mul.” Wilde hurried off.

  Mulheisen trailed slowly after him, thinking about Bobby. He shivered in the wind when he got outside, whether from the breeze or the thought of the state hospital he wasn't sure. He found his car in the parking lot and drove away, still thinking about Bobby Parenteau. It was almost a welcome distraction from worrying about Mandy. It seemed to him that Bobby's case had been a much simpler, easier one. True, it had taken four years to wrap up, but really only a few weeks of investigation. Mulheisen hoped that whatever had driven Bobby to open fire at Witt and the other youngsters wasn't still bothering him. Obviously, the four years of exemplary behavior had impressed Judge Brownlow.

  But here, the ATF had already spent several months investigating Vanni and his friends with little result except the fortuitous “spin-off,” as Phelps called it, of the Cuban investigation. It was all a tangled and confusing mess, as far as Mulheisen could see. He didn't expect that it would ever be completely sorted out. But he was used to that. Hardly anything is ever completely explicable when it comes to criminal investigation. Even when a case is more or less satisfactorily concluded, as with Bobby Parenteau, the nagging little mysteries remain. How much more so would it be in the present case?

  Normally, there was a powerful tendency for investigators to abandon old, unproductive cases in favor of new, active ones with interesting new leads and unfamiliar witnesses to interview. To be sure, the sheer pressure of the horrendous caseload made that necessary. But Mulheisen knew that many detectives were adept at avoiding complicated or controversial cases in favor of “grounders” —typically, the crime that comes equipped with its own solution, as when the wife telephones the precinct to inform them that she just shot her husband to death and will they please come and get her.

  Mulheisen turned up Vernor Avenue en route to the precinct, and shortly afterward drove by the signal tower where three men had died. It looked normal and routine this morning. A switch engine rumbled down the track, looking for something to hook on to.

  Mulheisen mused on. There were other detectives, of course, who looked for sensational cases. It was one way to get ahead. You took a chance, naturally. If the case couldn't be solved in good time, you were on the spot. Some guys didn't mind the heat. But most, he thought, preferred routine. “It's just a job,” they would say, although he didn't know any detective who really believed that his job was ordinary. No detective thought of his job in the sense that an assembly-line worker, a mailman or a garbage collector thought of his job. Detectives thought of themselves as something special. It was an important job. Routine, at times, but still not “just a job.”

  Come to think of it, he told himself, probably the mailman and the garbage collector feel the same way. Why shouldn't they? But he doubted they had the same intensity of feeling about their jobs.

  At the precinct there was a note from the medical examiner's office. They wanted to know if “John Doe number nine-eighty-nine” could be released from the morgue. The medical examiner wanted to dispose of the cadaver. It would go either to the Wayne State University Medical School or to a private research organization upstate. Mulheisen talked to Dr. Brennan, the autopsist.

  “I don't see why we can't clear this one, Mul,” Brennan said. “There isn't any legal action pending, is there?”

  “No, but I'm working on some related material. Can't you just bury him? Then if we have to, we can dig him up again.”

  “We could, but that costs the county money. The other way we make money.”

  “You mean you're selling corpses?” Mulheisen said.

  “I wouldn't say ‘selling,’ “ Brennan replied. “We are compensated. It isn't much, but it helps to keep the refrigerators running. Have you gotten anywhere on an identification? If he had some relatives, or even some friends, we could cheerfully release the body for burial.”

  Mulheisen admitted that he hadn't been able to identify the man. Probably there was no reason to hold the body, but somehow he was reluctant to let it go.

  “If he goes to the med school or this other place, this research outfit, he'll be all chopped up and disappear, won't he?” Mulheisen asked.

  “Sometimes, Mul, you have a way of making things sound worse than they are,” Brennan said in a wry tone. “Your John Doe won't ‘disappear,’ but he will get scattered, certainly.”

  “Doc, I feel terrible. I haven't had much sleep, not much breakfast, too much coffee . . . this conversation is gagging me.”

  “How have you been feeling, generally?” Brennan asked, with evident concern. “Why aren't you sleeping?”

  “Every time I go to bed, the telephone rings.”

  “You're sure that's all it is?”

  Mulheisen was surprised by the doctor's interest; he knew Brennan, but they weren't close friends. “How's your stool?” Brennan asked.

  “My stool's fine! What is this? A little loose, maybe.”

  “You been drinking a lot lately?” Brennan asked.

  “No more than usual,” Mulheisen said.

  “Do your hands feel puffy? Any heaviness in the legs?”

  “Doc, I'm okay,” Mulheisen said. “I'm sorry I mentioned it. I'm just not getting enough sleep. As soon as this case I'm on is wrapped up, I'll go to bed for a week. Okay?”

  “When's the last time you took a vacation?”

  Despite himself, Mulheisen reflected. “My God! It's over three years.”

>   “You're working too hard,” Brennan said. “What for? You ever ask yourself that? Keep it up, Mul, and I'll be looking at you on my table one of these mornings. You're getting into the forties, aren't you?”

  “I'm thirty-nine,” Mulheisen muttered. “All right, I'll put in for a vacation. I've got a couple months coming. I'll go to Florida or something.” Yeah, Florida, he thought. They've got Cubans there, too.

  “Are you taking any kind of medication?” Brennan asked. “Any speed? Something to just keep you going?”

  “Caffeine,” Mulheisen said.

  “Go see a doctor. Get your blood pressure checked. Hell, come down and see me. I'll do it for free.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I'll do that, I mean it. In the meantime, hang on to John Doe for me, okay?”

  “I'll give you a week,” Brennan said, “but only on the condition that you stop by to see me. I don't get to do much live-people doctoring. I need the practice.” He laughed and hung up.

  Thirteen

  “Where's DenBoer?” Mulheisen asked.

  “Search me,” Vanni replied, shrugging.

  Mulheisen looked at the man. He felt a growing discontent with Vanni. He didn't like to show his irritation with him, however. He said mildly, “All right, let's go back to my office.”

  As soon as they reached the cubicle Vanni started right in, without sitting down. “Sergeant Mulheisen, I don't have much time. I've been waiting ten minutes already. DenBoer didn't come in this morning, and neither did Mandy. I'm swamped! I got the agency to send over a girl to answer the telephone and type a few letters, but I've got to . . .” Vanni faltered under Mulheisen's baleful stare.

  “Sit down, Vanni,” Mulheisen said. He himself was slumped in his chair behind the gray metal desk, one foot deposited in the open bottom drawer. He dragged shallowly on a cigar. Vanni sat down stiffly.

  For several seconds Mulheisen watched him. The man was infuriatingly fresh, despite his complaint of a harried morning. He looked so clean and dapper that Mulheisen had a fleeting vision of Vanni as a raccoon, daintily rinsing his lunch by the streamside. The notion was amusing enough to quell Mulheisen's impatience.