O’Neil De Noux might be the best short story writer of detective fiction working today. I say something like that that every time, with every one of his stories, because it’s true. And I just can’t think of a better way to describe O’Neil’s incredible talent at taking us into his worlds. And yes, I have said that before as well.
O’Neil has published almost fifty novels with more coming regularly. His awards include The United Kingdom Short Story Prize, the Shamus Award (for best private eye fiction), the Derringer Award (for excellence in mystery short fiction) and Police Book of the Year. Two of his stories have appeared in the prestigious Best American Mystery Stories annual anthology. You can find out a lot more about his work at his website http://www.oneildenoux.com/
March 5, 1982
Criminal District Court, New Orleans
“A single blow to the head.” Detective LaStanza looked at the jury as he answered the defense attorney’s question.
“Just one blow?” Harry Crystal said, his voice rising slightly. In his seventies, the old fox was trying his best with a bad case. LaStanza would have felt sorry for Crystal if the attorney hadn’t skewered LaStanza on the witness stand on several previous cases.
Well over six-feet, Crystal was a thin man with silver hair and a slight Mississippi accent, which gave him a warm, country presentation, especially in the mini–New York called New Orleans, where most people, including LaStanza spoke with a standard-issue Orleans accent, flat A’s and harsh vowels, sounding Brooklynese. An image of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch came to LaStanza’s mind as he watched Crystal standing behind the defense table, fiddling with a pocket watch he’d slipped from his vest.
Who the hell carried a pocket watch these days?
Crystal looked up, focusing his dark brown eyes at LaStanza, and said, “Were there any knife wounds on Mr. Shoemaker’s body?”
“It did not appear so, sir.”
Crystal’s eyebrows rose. “Did not appear?”
LaStanza looked at the jury again. “I’m not an expert on wounds, sir. Besides the crushed skull, there were six wounds on Mr. Shoemaker’s body, two on his hands, two on his side and one on each leg. They appeared to be abrasions, but I cannot testify if they were or weren’t inflicted by a knife.” Looking at Crystal, he quickly added, “I’m sure the pathologist can give a more scientific explanation of the wounds.”
“Detective,” Judge DeSalvo cut in. “You will confine your remarks to what you know, not what the pathologist may or may not explain.”
“Yes, sir.”
Crystal came right back. “Now let me get this straight. You charge my client with first-degree murder because he allegedly attacked the victim with a knife and yet there were no knife wounds.” Crystal was doing what good defense lawyers did—creating a smoke screen to mask the guilt of the accused.
“Objection,” Assistant DA Judy Brown stood. “If counsel has a question, let him ask it.” She adjusted her black horn-rimmed glasses. Judy was a petite woman with lifeless brown hair and the sharpest legal mind LaStanza knew. If Crystal was a fox, she was the ultimate fox hound.
Judge DeSalvo waved the attorneys forward. A husky man with salt-and-pepper hair and a matching beard, DeSalvo was obviously displeased with the sparring. LaStanza looked over at the defendant. Michael Bellinger, in a blue suit, sat behind the defense table with his arms folded and stared straight ahead. He looked smaller than six-two in that ill-fitted suit. Clean-shaven, brown hair cropped short, skin a jailhouse pallor of faded pink, he seemed to have gained weight awaiting trial in parish prison. Probably the first time in years he’d had three meals a day. He wouldn’t return LaStanza’s stare, hadn’t looked at him since the trial started.
LaStanza leaned back and ran his hand through his wavy, dark brown hair. He needed a haircut. Again. He patted his full moustache with his fingers. Olive-complected with light green, Sicilian eyes, the detective stood five-six and weighed a lean one-thirty. A distance runner in high school, he carried the same weight at thirty-two. Turning to the jury, he made eye contact with a black man in a tan suit, then with a young white man in a polo shirt. Moving his gaze along the jury, he tried his best to connect with them.
When the attorneys returned to their positions, Crystal asked his next question. “Why did you charge my client with first-degree murder?”
LaStanza wanted to explain to the jury they always charge murderers with the most serious degree as they built their case. Kept them from making bail easily and if the DA thought the charge should be lowered, let the DA lower it. But that sounded complicated, so he looked at the jury and said, “During an armed robbery…”
“What armed robbery?” Crystal interrupted.
DeSalvo cut him off. “Counselor, let the officer finish his answer.”
LaStanza lowered his normally forceful voice so the jury would have to concentrate to listen. “Michael Bellinger went after Mr. Shoemaker with a knife to rob Mr. Shoemaker, who knocked the knife away from Mr. Bellinger, who picked up a big rock and hit Mr. Shoemaker on the head. Mr. Bellinger rifled Mr. Shoemaker’s clothes and took his money. Five dollars and fifty-seven cents.”
“In Louisiana,” Judge DeSalvo injected to the jury, “as I explained in my initial instructions to you as the trial began, a murder during the commission of certain felonies qualifies as first-degree murder. Armed robbery is one of those felonies. I will elaborate in your final instructions.” DeSalvo looked back at Crystal. “Now let’s move on.”
LaStanza fanned his blue suit coat to allow some of the lame air-conditioning to cool him. A woman juror, middle-aged, with sandy hair smiled and fanned herself with a sheet of paper. LaStanza smiled slightly in response. He was connecting and that was good. They were paying attention to his testimony and hopefully would like him and believe what he said. Everyone played legal gamesmanship in court, lawyers, witnesses, even judges. Everyone wanted to win.
Crystal stood looking down at his notes for a moment, his shoulders sinking. Maybe he was feeling his age after all. He took in a breath and said, “Detective LaStanza, did you beat my client to get his confession?”
“No, sir,” LaStanza answered, turned to the jury to show he was serious.
“You never struck him at any time.”
“That’s correct.”
“Have you ever beaten anyone to get a confession?” It was the old police brutality defense and Crystal was putting it out to give the jury something to ponder, but LaStanza was ready.
Letting his gaze move across the jury as he answered, LaStanza kept his voice firm. “No, sir. Beating people for confessions is useless. Hell, you beat me and I’ll confess to the Kennedy Assassination to get you to stop.” His voice rose. “It’s of no value.”
Crystal’s face remained stern. “Isn’t it true you’ve been accused of police brutality seventeen times?”
LaStanza gave Judy Brown a moment to object, but she just nodded slightly to him. He wanted to tell the jury it was a common defense attorney ploy to have accused criminals file an accusation against police officers, to cloud the issue, but this wasn’t the time for speeches, so he said, “I don’t know how many times I’ve been accused, but each accusation was investigated and all have been deemed unfounded. Without merit.”
Crystal opened his arms. “Seventeen accusations and all without merit!”
LaStanza keep his face as expressionless as he could.
Crystal waited a moment before asking, “Detective LaStanza, are you a Vietnam veteran?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What branch of the service?”
“US Army.”
“Ever hear of the My Lai massacre?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you ever involved in any massacres?”
“Objection!” Judy Brown stood. She opened her mouth to continue, just sat and said, “Never mind.” A bored look on her face told the jury to let the old man ramble.
LaStanza figured Crystal would bring up Vietnam, since the accused and the victim were also Vietnam vets. Maybe he planned to paint all of them, including LaStanza, with the same brush. They were all village-burning, baby-killing Viet vets.
Crystal repeated his question about massacres.
LaStanza looked into the eyes of a black woman juror in a maroon dress as he said, “My Lai occurred in nineteen sixty-eight. I was still in high school. Didn’t go to Vietnam until nineteen seventy-four. The only massacre I saw was the Michelon Plantation Massacre.” LaStanza turned back to Crystal. “I took pictures of the bodies of US Marines executed by the Viet Cong.”
Crystal bit his lower lip pensively before asking, “Detective LaStanza, how many men have you killed?”
“Objection, your honor.” Judy stood, fists on her hips. “No, go ahead and answer, detective.”
She knew LaStanza was prepared for this.
He asked Crystal to repeat the question and answered it with a question of his own, “In Vietnam?”
“No. How many men have you killed in New Orleans?”
LaStanza said, “Unfortunately, I’ve had to shoot two men in the line of duty.”
“Two?” Crystal looked at his notes again. “I’ve been informed you’ve shot four people.”
LaStanza stared back at Crystal’s dark eyes. “Counselor, you’ve been misinformed.”
Crystal shuffled his papers. “Ever been indicted for any of those killings?” He softened his voice when he was most accusatory.
“No, sir.”
Crystal took in a deep breath. “Seventeen police brutality complaints. At least two killings and you’re always innocent.”
If Crystal was trying to get a rise out of LaStanza, he’d succeeded, but the detective was experienced enough to keep it inside. He kept his face placid as he stared back at the learned counselor.
Touché, old man. A good parry, but I’m not going for it.
Crystal flipped through several pages of notes and declared, “I tender the witness.”
Judy Brown had two questions in re-direct.
“Were the shootings you were involved in investigated by a grand jury and the FBI?
God, he wanted to add the words—meticulously investigated—but settled for a simple, “Yes, ma’am.”
“And all of the shootings were deemed justified?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Judy sat back down and the judge dismissed LaStanza, who stepped over to the prosecution table to re-claim his seat next to Judy Brown. This was the first time he’d ever sat at the prosecution table. A new Louisiana law allowed the chief investigating officer to assist with the prosecution, instead of cooling his heels in the hall where witnesses were sequestered, not allowed to observe the testimony of other witnesses.
He took out his notepad and pen, in anticipation of passing Judy a note if any of the witnesses said something that waved a flag at him. The next witness was the crime lab technician who processed the crime scene.
LaStanza leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander back to the crime scene….
August 24, 1981
South Rocheblave Street
The rain had ended, but the ground was still soaked as LaStanza stepped away from his unmarked Ford LTD. Moving through the grass alongside the flooded street, amid the constant hum of high-speed vehicles flying overhead on the elevated I-10 Pontchartrain Expressway above South Rocheblave, LaStanza stopped when he saw the dumpsters. Dozens of them, some rusty, some in fairly good shape, all lined beneath the overpass.
The only illumination came from the lights from the interstate and the flashlights of the cops standing between the first two dumpsters. A patrol sergeant waved his flashlight at LaStanza, who recognized the big man immediately. Sgt. Ferdinand Thomas was six-three, a former NFL linebacker with skin as dark as burned wood. Stepping over to Thomas, LaStanza spotted three homeless men standing next to a burning oil drum, their faces glowing in the drum’s firelight.
“Your victim’s about twenty yards that way.” Thomas pointed beyond the drum. “Your perpetrator’s sitting the back of my unit.”
LaStanza turned back to the street and saw a shadow in the back seat of the sergeant’s marked NOPD car.
“He say anything?”
“Nope.”
“Can you take him up to the Bureau? My sergeant’s waiting.”
“Sure.” Thomas waved a patrolman over as LaStanza walked through the dumpsters, past the burning oil drum, the three homeless men staring at him. Two whites and a black man, all middle-aged, all wearing too many clothes for a summer night. The acrid stench of the fire followed LaStanza.
The victim lay on his right side, white male, forties, full beard, about six feet tall, skinny, wearing a navy pea jacket, several shirts, and very worn blue jeans. He also wore jungle boots, Vietnam-issue combat boots with camouflaged canvas sides.
“Welcome to Fort Dumpster,” Sgt. Thomas said as he arrived with his oversized flashlight.
“What?”
“Most of these guys are vets. That’s what they call this place.”
LaStanza went down on his haunches next to the victim and examined the man’s crushed skull with his flashlight.
“What was he hit with?”
“Witnesses say a rock. Perpetrator threw the rock across the railroad tracks after he rifled the victim’s pockets.”
Standing, LaStanza looked back at the three men next to the oil drum. All wore parts of uniforms, one a marine jacket, one an army field jacket with a familiar patch on the left shoulder, a big red one. First Infantry Division. LaStanza’s old unit in Nam.
A crime lab tech arrived and began processing the scene, taking photos, taking measurements, gathering evidence. LaStanza had him search for the rock along the railroad tracks while he spoke with the witnesses.
The men smelled of BO and beer, were filthy and hungry, and among them had been awarded nine combat citations, including three Bronze Stars for valor. LaStanza learned the accused and victim had each had received a Purple Heart, each had spilled their blood in combat in the defense of their country.
Sgt. Thomas pointed out the dumpster of the accused. It was blue with only a couple rust spots. Tattered railroad ties, stacked outside the dumpster, provided steps to the open top. Leaning inside with his flashlight, LaStanza looked into Michael Bellinger’s world, dominated by the sour smell of sweat. Cinder blocks stacked as steps led into the dumpster. A large red and white Igloo ice chest sat next to the cinder blocks. A mattress to the left was piled with several mismatched blankets. A piece of cardboard above the Igloo had a Silver Star and a Purple Heart medal pinned to it.
Jesus. A Silver Star. Heroism in the face of the enemy.
LaStanza closed his eyes and felt a wave of heat wash across his face, probably from the exhausts from the vehicles overhead, and for a moment he was back along the Mekong River, on a patrol trudging through the jungle. Suddenly the birds stopped chirping and everyone hit the deck as Charlie opened up, the bark of AK-47s clashing with the American M-16s. The leaves around LaStanza shredded, the air filled with the choking stench of gunpowder, along with the coppery scent of blood.
The firefight lasted only ninety seconds. LaStanza emptied three clips from his M-16. They found the bodies of six North Vietnamese regulars in the brush. One GI was killed, a kid from Omaha who, that morning, had traded his C-ration chocolate to LaStanza for the free cigarettes that came with the rations.
LaStanza remembered feeling so helpless looking down at the body of the kid from Omaha. Now, as he stood looking down into the accused Michael Bellinger’s dumpster, he had the same heart sinking feeling.
Only he wasn’t helpless. He took in a deep breath. Helpless, no. He had a job to do. The victim shared a dumpster with another vet. It looked almost the same as Bellinger’s, without the Silver Star.
When the coroner’s office removed the victim’s body, LaStanza took his three witnesses to the Detective Bureau for his sergeant to take their statements while he interviewed the accused.
March 5, 1982
Criminal District Court, New Orleans
After the Crime Lab Tech finished explaining how he found the murder weapon, the rock with blood and hair on it, the following morning by the railroad tracks and Harry Crystal passed on cross-examining him, Judy Brown stood up.
“The people call Dr. Matthew Patrick,” Judy said as she straightened her black suit coat. She wore a long skirt, past the knee, a white blouse, and low heels, also black.
Patrick was even taller than Crystal and spoke with a New England accent. A retired US Navy officer, Patrick had headed the pathology department at Bethesda Naval Hospital before retiring to New Orleans, where he worked part-time for the coroner. LaStanza felt lucky when one of his victims fell under Patrick’s knife because the victim had the best pathologist helping catch his or her killer.
As Dr. Patrick rattled off his credentials, LaStanza glanced at Judy Brown’s morning newspaper on the table next to her notepad. There was a picture of John Belushi on the front page. As discreetly as he could, LaStanza opened the paper and let it lay there and felt an immediate stab inside. Belushi found dead. Found dead?
LaStanza steeled his reaction from the jury but couldn’t stop the sickening feeling in his heart. What a loss. Belushi was so damn funny. He looked for details in the news article and it sounded like an OD.
Dammit to hell. The man was a comic genius.
He closed the paper and looked at the jury. Three were watching him and he tried his best to keep his face from expressing anything. It was tough. The last time LaStanza felt this way was when John Lennon was killed.
As Dr. Patrick went over the wounds on the victim’s body, LaStanza paid close attention. The abrasions were recent and were probably made by a sharp metal object.
Harry Crystal jumped on the knife wounds immediately in his cross-examination, but Dr. Patrick sat there coolly, reciting what he’d said earlier. The abrasions were recent and were probably made by a sharp metal object.
Glancing again at Michael Bellinger, LaStanza saw the defendant wasn’t watching Dr. Patrick either. He was staring straight ahead, blinking occasionally. Of all the murderers LaStanza had arrested, Bellinger was the most genuinely sorry for what he’d done. He’d said so right off the bat at the Detective Bureau.
August 24, 1981
Detective Bureau, South Broad Avenue
Sitting behind the small table in a tiny, windowless interview room, on a hard wooden chair whose front legs had been sawed down a half inch so the interviewee was constantly leaning forward, constantly uncomfortable, Michael Bellinger wore his green army field jacket with a yellow and black First Cavalry patch on his shoulder.
The interview was short and to the point. I’m sure ole Jack Webb would describe it as “Just the facts.” LaStanza read him his rights and Michael said, “I killed Pigsticker ’cause he stole from me.”
“Pigsticker?”
“Shoemaker’s moniker in Nam ’cause he hunted pigs in country. He was a Marine, up by Da Nang when Charlie came outta everywhere. You know. Tet.”
The Tet Offensive, 1968.
Bellinger, forty-two years old, was also in Nam during the Tet Offensive. He’d been living at Fort Dumpster for three years. His hazel eyes looked tired, his face hardened by years of sun and wind, his cheeks sunken, his beard scraggly, hair a bushy spiderweb of brown and gray fibers.
“Pigsticker was always stealing things. Stole food all the time. Stole the ten bucks I got from cars passing on Tulane at Jeff Davis Parkway. I just snapped when my French bread was gone.”
Bellinger had spotted a cook tossing out nine loaves of French bread behind a Canal Street restaurant, took them back to the fort and divvied them out, keeping two for himself.
“I caught Pigsticker with a mouthful ’a bread. Said it was part ’a his, but he ate all his. I found summa my ten bucks in his pocket after he was dead. Five dollars and fifty-seven cents. He took my clock too.”
“Clock?”
“Little alarm clock I found in a bin behind a motel on Tulane. Glass chipped, but it still worked. Kind you gotta wind up.”
“How did you know he took these things?”
He shrugged.
“Did you see him?”
“I didn’t have to.” Bellinger looked into LaStanza’s eyes. “I knew.”
LaStanza saw a look in the man’s eyes, a look he’d seen before in the eyes of a sniper he’d photographed outside Bien Hua in a little part of Nam called The Iron Triangle. It was a sudden, sharp look, a snake-eyes look of certainty.
LaStanza stuck to the facts and Michael Bellinger gave them up with no problem, a full inculpatory statement, the kind the DA’s Office loved. Bellinger said he was sorry and almost broke down.
“I don’t know.” Bellinger sat with his head in his hands. “I just snap sometimes. Got this violence in me.” He looked up at LaStanza. “Were you in country?”
“Yep. Toward the end.”
“Oh.”
After LaStanza turned off the tape recorder, he tried to get Bellinger to talk about Vietnam but the man shook his head. He tried to get Bellinger to talk about Fort Dumpster but all Bellinger said was, “When do I get to eat?”
March 5, 1982
Criminal District Court, New Orleans
The first eyewitness took the stand wearing a blue suit the DA’s Office bought for him at Kmart. Louis Bishkin, white male, forty-five, formerly of the First Infantry Division, Bien Hua, South Vietnam, looked as out of place as the accused in his ill-fitted suit. Red-faced with a bluish drinker’s nose, Bishkin was the star witness, the most eloquent when describing the killing.
LaStanza watched him carefully, following his testimony with the statement Bishkin had signed the night of the murder. He’d known of a simmering feud between Bellinger and Shoemaker, cutting remarks about the Marines and Cavalry, accusations of thievery.
As much as he could, LaStanza watched Bellinger, who continued staring straight ahead, seeming to be in another world.
“It was ten-thirty exactly when the fight started,” Bishkin said as he began a blow-by-blow description of the fight. LaStanza looked back at Bishkin’s original statement and noticed there was no mention of time. In fact, Bishkin originally said he wasn’t sure of the time. LaStanza made his first note for Judy Brown.
He followed Bishkin’s testimony carefully and there was no further elaboration. He fought off a yawn as Judy sat down. He handed his note to her and she shrugged. Okay, witnesses often expanded their testimony once on the witness stand, once they were the center of so much attention.
Harry Crystal’s cross-examination of Bishkin was surprisingly short. No need for the jury to dwell on the moment of death.
As Judy started to rise, LaStanza grabbed her arm and pointed to his note. She shrugged again and he leaned over and whispered, “Just ask him.” When he leaned back, she looked him in the eye and he narrowed his, feeling pinpricks along the back of his neck. It was another of those inexplicable gut feelings a detective gets.
Judy stood and said, “One question on re-direct.”
Judge De Salvo nodded.
Judy turned to Bishkin. “How did you know the exact time?”
“Oh.” Bishkin smiled and pulled out a small alarm clock from his coat pocket and showed it to Judy. “I looked at my clock.”
LaStanza could see the chipped glass on the clock’s crystal from where he sat. The pinpricks became needles. LaStanza turned to Bellinger who finally looked at Bishkin, then looked at LaStanza, and they both knew it immediately.
He’d killed the wrong man.