“That’s pretty much right, counselor, except for the embarrassment part.”
“Well, I don’t want that,” Reverend Waldo snapped. “I don’t want that at all.” He glared at his son. “I won’t have the church put in this position.”
Middlebrooks patted his arm again. “Let me talk to the detective a moment, John.”
The lawyer walked across the small office and took a seat next to Harry. “Now exactly how reputable are these witnesses who placed Bobby Joe with this murdered woman? I mean it is a minister we’re talking about here.”
Harry nodded, fighting off a smile. “I know that, counselor. But the witnesses both identified Bobby Joe from his old mug shots.” He watched the lawyer wince at the words. “But, of course, we’ll do a formal lineup at headquarters and let them identify him in the flesh.”
The Reverend John Waldo began to sputter, but Middlebrooks raised a hand asking him to hold off any comment. “And who exactly are these witnesses?” the lawyer asked.
“They’re both topless dancers at the Peek-a-Boo Lounge,” Harry said. Middlebrooks began to object, but now Harry raised a hand and continued speaking in a slow, methodical voice. “And… they were both close acquaintances of Darlene Beckett. And… they also both say that shortly before Darlene’s murder, they saw her sitting at the bar engaged in some rather heavy flirting with Bobby Joe, and that after a time… Bobby Joe and Darlene appeared to leave together.” Harry let his words sink in before going on. “In my book, counselor, that’s enough to make him a material witness.”
“Well, we shall have to see about that,” Middlebrooks intoned in his best lawyerly voice.
At that point Reverend Waldo stepped forward and smiled down on Harry. “Now look here, son. What’s say we take a step back and decide not to get our lawyer involved, maybe just go on like before? We do that, can we maybe do away with the need for the flashing red lights and the handcuff business?”
Harry took a moment to feign consideration. He glanced over at Bobby Joe, who seemed suddenly hopeful. He looked at Middlebrooks, who now seemed annoyed at having his golf game interrupted. Then he looked up at the Reverend John Waldo, his plump cheeks again spread into a cherubic smile.
Slowly, Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, reverend. I’d like to help you out here, but I think we’ve gone a bit too far.”
Harry watched the reverend’s smile turn into quick, red-faced rage, before he turned to his son. “Bobby Joe, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to take a ride down to headquarters.”
Harry took out his cell phone and called for transport.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bobby Joe sat in the interrogation room breathing in hot, stagnant air, looking very much like a lost soul. Harry entered the room with Walter Middlebrooks and immediately came up short.
“Damn, the air-conditioning seems to be on the blink again. Let me go see what I can do to get it back on.” Harry turned and left the room, the door automatically locking behind him. A uniformed sergeant was waiting for him.
“When do you want me to turn the air back on?” he asked.
“Let them sweat for about twenty minutes; then turn it on. I’ll go back in ten minutes after that. It’ll be nice and cool by then.”
The sergeant laughed and Harry headed for the soft drink machine.
When he returned a half hour later the sergeant was still standing outside the door grinning. “That lawyer started pounding on the door about ten minutes after you left, but nobody could hear him; kept on pounding until the air went back on. It should be cool now, but I don’t know how hot he’s still gonna be.”
“I’m sure the Reverend Bobby Joe explained that we all have crosses to bear,” Harry said as he reached for the door handle.
Walter Middlebrooks was glaring when Harry entered the room.
“Sorry it took so long,” Harry said. “Our maintenance guy had slipped away on a coffee break.” He raised his hands at his sides as if testing the air. “It sure feels good in here now, though.”
Middlebrooks looked at him through narrowed eyes.
Don’t blame me, Harry thought. You talk to your fat preacher client. He looked down at Bobby Joe. “First thing we want to do, Bobby Joe, is get these two women who placed you with Darlene to get a look at you in the flesh. All they saw was a mug shot and that was a couple of years old.”
Bobby Joe twisted in his seat, looked up at Middlebrooks, and asked, “Do I have to do this?”
“No, you don’t,” Middlebrooks said.
Harry shrugged and gestured to a large mirror on the wall. “You know what’s behind the mirror, right?” He waited while Bobby Joe nodded. “These two ladies… We could have brought them in there to have a look at you through the one-way mirror. I could also bring them out to the church tomorrow or the next day and wait for you to go to your car. What I’m trying to do here, Bobby Joe, is give you the best shot at being eliminated as a suspect.”
Bobby Joe peered up at him, the distrust in his eyes so vibrant it seemed alive. “How do I know you’re not settin’ me up?”
Harry paused, surprised by the question. He decided to let it go unanswered and move on. “It’s like this, Bobby Joe. Doing it this way gives you your best shot at shaking their earlier ID. What I do is I put you in a lineup with five other guys, all your size and age and physical description, and if these ladies can’t pick you out as the one and only guy they saw with Darlene…” Harry offered up a shrug. “Then their earlier ID isn’t worth anything and I’m back to square one.”
Bobby Joe looked up at his lawyer.
Middlebrooks nodded. “That’s all true, but this lineup isn’t something they can make you do unless they charge you. It’s also true that they’ll find a way to do it anyway, and that way might not be as favorable to you.” He turned to Harry. “But if my client agrees to do this I expect to be present and in the same room with these… women… when they try to make a positive identification.”
The lineup room was just off the booking area on the first floor. It was actually two rooms, separated by a large viewing window made up of one-way glass. One room was dimly lit and had a row of chairs where witnesses could sit and look into the second room without being seen by the people they were viewing. The second room was long and narrow with bright lights centered on the wall opposite the viewing window. That wall was lined and marked in feet and inches so the height of those being viewed could be noted.
A uniformed deputy led a line of five men into the room. Bobby Joe was the third man in line. The men were approximately the same age, all were white and between five-ten and six feet in height, and all had longish hair. The two dancers were seated behind the one-way window watching as the men entered. Harry had introduced them to Bobby Joe’s lawyer only by their first names. Middlebrooks seemed confused by their appearance. Both young women were dressed modestly in shorts and T-shirts and neither was wearing makeup. They looked more like college coeds than exotic dancers and that fact obviously unsettled Middlebrooks. One of the women was, in fact, a junior at the University of South Florida, which was only a short drive from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge. She lived with her mother and used the money she earned to pay her tuition. She had also made the dean’s list the past three semesters. Middlebrooks and Bobby Joe had been told none of that. Harry was saving those bits of information to further unnerve them.
The viewing room filled as five uniformed officers took seats between the two dancers, effectively separating them. Harry didn’t want a reaction from one to influence the other. As a deputy directed the men to take numbered spots along the wall, Harry gave paper and pen to each woman and instructed them to write down the number of anyone in the lineup they could identify. As Harry moved to the back of the room, Vicky came up beside him.