“Where did he get the guns?”
“Working on that, Loot,” said Garsh. “Everything he carried he could have been purchased legally, assuming he filled out his paperwork and observed the waiting period. We’re checking that.”
“What about our procedures?” Poley asked. “Who’s making sure that we did everything right?”
“Rat Squad,” said Atchison.
“I don’t mean Internal Affairs. I want some of us to check our procedures. See if they were followed and recommend changes if need be. But make sure you cooperate with Internal too. We have nothing to hide.”
Poley sighed. “Okay, now the big one. Any progress on motive?”
Silence.
“Come on. Who’s in charge of that?”
Francey stood up. A big man, he took up a lot of room. “I’ve been compiling it, Loot, but it’s mostly a stack of negatives. The survivors at the travel agency swear they never saw Mattocks before. He has no known connection with any store on that block.”
“There’s got to be some reason he went in there and started shooting people,” said Poley. “Ideas?”
“Was he married?” asked Hacker.
“Divorced last year.”
“So he was mad at his wife. Maybe was she about to take a trip?”
“He wasn’t angry. The divorce was his idea. Said he was bored and wanted a change.”
“Who was the girlfriend?” said Juarez. “Men don’t leave until they have a new cook and housemaid ready.”
“You’re leaving out the most essential service,” said Atchison. People laughed.
“No sign of a new romance,” said Francey. “No sign he was stalking anybody at the travel agency either.”
“Did he have problems with some other travel agency?” asked Kelly. “My in-laws went on a cruise and got so sick they had to be hospitalized. Couldn’t get a cent back.”
“Family says he never used travel agencies,” said Francey. “Most vacations they took were by car.”
“Two of the employees were Japanese,” said Washington. “Any chance this was a hate crime?”
“No evidence in that direction. The techies are going through his computer, but they haven’t found any hate sites. No evidence of drug abuse, by the way.”
“The man was a bore,” said Atchison. “Maybe that’s why he did it.”
“Work problems?” asked Garsh.
“Boss says his job was as secure as anybody’s is these days. No trouble with co-workers.”
“Jesus,” said Juarez.
“That’s a point,” said Katz. “This guy have any religious hangups? Maybe he thought travel was sinful.”
“Went to church on Christmas and Easter,” said Francey. “What else?”
Twenty cops sat in silence.
“Hell,” said Poley. “Maybe there wasn’t any motive. Maybe the guy was just nuts.”
Captain Stevens scowled at the gun and badge Poley had placed on his desk.
“Damn it, Alan, I said I don’t accept your resignation. Take a month off. You’ve earned it. When you come back, if you want I’ll put you in charge of records till you can retire.”
“The burnout squad?” said Poley. “No thanks. I really do appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m through here.”
Stevens raised his hands helplessly. “For Pete’s sake, why?”
Poley shook his head. “Motive,” he said, “is overrated.”
After the Tuesday briefing Poley had gone home. He was too tired to eat, although he knew he should be starving. The photographs of Mattocks’s victims had finished any appetite he could have raised.
He took a beer out of the fridge. Before opening it, he unloaded his pistol and locked both gun and ammo in the small safe in the hall closet. He had started doing that just before the first baby was born and never failed to do it now, even though Janey had left with the kids years before.
Somehow that thought brought Michelle Bedeker to mind. That had been the only time he had fired his weapon in more than twenty years of service.
Afterwards, he had gone to the department’s psychologist, because that was policy. Just a formality, he figured, but he was astonished when the shrink wanted him to come back for another session. “Maybe several. We’re just starting here, Sergeant.”
“You don’t think it was a righteous shoot? Everyone else does.”
The shrink was a thirtyish guy with a sour lemon face. “I don’t like that phrase, but yes, you did the right thing. Ms. Bedeker had a knife at a child’s throat. You saved the boy.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“My problem is that you don’t think it was justified. Don’t tell me otherwise, Sergeant. Your body language calls you a liar every time you mention her.”
Poley had sighed. “Tell me what I need to do to go back on duty.”
“We need to talk more. See what your real problems are.”
“From where I’m sitting, Doc, it looks like you’re my problem.”
“How’s your marriage, Sergeant?”
Poley’s face went blank. “That’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Give me a chance. Maybe I can help you.”
After half a dozen sessions the doctor gave up. Janey left anyway.
Poley sighed. He ought to go to bed, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Instead he went to the bathroom to let out some beer.
He looked at himself in the mirror. He thought about Juarez and wondered again why her husband had left such a terrific-looking woman. She was the one who had suggested that Mattocks’s motive might be a girlfriend on the side. Funny, now that he thought about it.
Poley’s reflection frowned back at him.
Washington, the only black on the squad, had suggested that it might be a hate crime.
Hacker thought the killer might have been having marital problems. Poley had caught him sleeping over in the crib room last month.
Garsh, who had more write-ups than most of the squad together, had asked if Mattocks had had work problems.
Atchison, the compulsive joker, guessed that the man had done it because he was a bore.
Nobody saw the killer at all. Mattocks was just a fun-house mirror.
At the press conference a reporter from the financially shaky local paper had asked if Mattocks had been laid off. The local TV newsman asked if he was stuck in a dead-end job.
“And what did you say, Lieutenant?” he asked the face in the mirror.
Maybe the guy was just nuts.
Copyright © 2011 Robert Lopresti
The Calculator
by Mithran Somasundrum
“I am a calculator.” That was the first thing he said to her. Can you imagine? The two of them in the McDonald’s at Chidlom, central Bangkok. The place so crowded on a Saturday afternoon that when they took adjacent tables at the far wall they were effectively sitting next to each other. Atiya thought he was asking for a calculator and passed her Nokia across. He looked at it sadly (“Like he felt sorry for it,” she said.) and shook his head. “No, that’s not a calculator.” Pointing to himself. “Me, I’m a calculator.” And he could prove it. The cube root of a six-digit number? No problem, rattling off the answer to ten places when the Nokia could only reach nine. Or how about picking a random seven-digit number and then doubling it continuously? He could get further in fifteen seconds, in his head, than she could furiously keying the numbers into her phone. After that she laughed and conceded. “Okay, you’re a calculator.”
Was he trying to pick her up? I wondered aloud. Atiya was in her mid twenties and had the classic heart-shaped face, dark eyes, and full lips that brought men to Thailand. Or if her looks didn’t, they were at least responsible for keeping them here. She shook her head. No, definitely not. She knew all about displays of male plumage. She’d come to our Chinatown office directly from work and was still in the light purple blouse and dark purple skirt of Siam Commercial Bank. When they put her at a counter it happened all the time: Some rich, middle-aged guy who thinks she must be impressed by the stack of cash he’s just handed over decides she’ll make the perfect mia noi (minor wife). She was used to requests for her phone number and used to batting them away. But The Calculator (Anthony, apparently) wasn’t like that.