The Subtle Art of Brutality

“I didn’t ask before he got his dick cut off and shoved down his throat.”

“There’s your murderer,” she says flatly.

“I’m not ruling out Delilah at all for the murder. We concentrate on the arsons,” I say. Rudd is lucky she has a neck I’d like to put my mouth on. Her personality is starting to come through. But like my old friend Howard Michigan always says: You’re not getting off with their personality.

I continue: “One firebug torched the three homes. Killed three people. We’re all in this together.”

“Pierce White,” she says. Volksman scoffs at me because he’s an asshole and Riggens is just taking notes.

“That guy has no reason to burn down three homes,” I say.

“Hitler had no previous history of starting wars until he did, Dahmer had no history of eating his lovers until he started one day and Darth Vader had no history of throwing his boss down a shaft until the mood struck him. Everybody starts somewhere, Mr. Buckner.”

“So Mr. White is your prime suspect?” I ask.

“I’m looking into Darla Boothe’s ex-husband,” Rudd says, turning a pencil over in her hands. “His record shows he has beef with women, he and his ex-wife have a long-smoldering feud over their life together and he shared a cell with a firebug before he got out. Less than a month later the last known address of his ex-, his daughter and his daughter’s new daddy burn down.”

“The last known address for his daughter was her mother’s place.”

“Tomato, tomato, Mr. Buckner. It all burns the same.”

“No,” I say, “Ben Boothe’s record says different. He’s too impulsive. He’s got nothing on there saying he thinks before he acts. He just flips out. Did it when he abandoned his family, did it whenever he’d get drunk and call his ex-wife, threatening. Hell, he let his anger get the best of him in the divorce proceedings. They hauled his ass out of court when Darla Boothe started getting everything. And the rape? Just one more example. No plans. No forethought whatsoever, let alone the brains to plan three different arsons using three distinctly different MO’s on the same night and get away with it.”

“He hasn’t gotten away with it, Mr. Buckner.”

Okay. She’s getting old now.

“Find him?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“He is renting a small home over on the east side. Off of 142nd and Regal.”

“Alibi?”

“A girl vouches for him. Picked her up at a bar. Spent the night.”

“Her name?”

“Not your concern.”

“So Mr. White is your prime suspect?”

“I didn’t say that. I have serious doubts Ben Boothe was with the girl,” she says, removing her stylish frames and rubbing one lens with a cloth. “She spoke in vague terms, acted like she was reading from a script. Their stories lined up but they weren’t very complicated either.”

The best lies are simple and formed from kernels of truth. I bet Boothe met her at the bar, maybe bought her a drink. Got a blowjob in the shitter. Patted her on the head and left here there as he went to the next bar. It’s not hard to buy her some drugs as a bribe and tell her if anyone comes sniffing around, showing a badge, you and me went back to my place for the whole night. Got it?

“Is she dirty?” I ask.

“Long history of petty things.”

“Obstruction? Resisting? Dope? Disorderly conduct?”

“All of it. Why?”

“Obstruction, resisting and disorderly all point to someone willing to lie and make life harder for the police. Respect issues. No cooperation, lying, misleading, avoiding, all disrespect. It equals obstruction. Escalating a situation, throwing a fit when the police try to control that situation, resisting. Fit throwing equals disorderly.”