Vigilante

portrayed in books and film as a terrible tyrant. But if you read the ship’s logs as I have, actually Fletcher Christian was the real malcontent. Christian had once been Bligh’s protege. Christian organized a mutiny with eighteen out of forty-two crew members. After it was over and he’d taken the ship, only these original mutineers wanted to remain on the Bounty, while all but four of the loyalists boarded a leaking, unsafe lifeboat and went with William Bligh. They preferred to set off across thousands of miles of open ocean with their courageous captain rather than remain behind with the treacherous Mr. Christian.”

I had no idea what we were actually talking about. I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with Fletcher Christian or the mutiny on the Bounty.

Nash paused, then asked, “Why do you suppose Fletcher Christian took the ship? What caused him to put his saber to William Bligh’s throat and force him into a lifeboat with only a sextant and a watch to navigate with? Can you discern the reason?”

“The goal gradient phenomenon?” I answered.

“You’re a lot smarter than you look,” Nash said. “Exactly right. William Bligh, if you read his logs, was a great commander. A great sailor and leader. Fletcher Christian was a young officer stuck in middle management, bored, unhappy, and filled with malaise. This is what spawned his moment of corruption. It’s the same situation I battle every day.”

Nash crossed the cabin and picked up my water bottle, then dropped it into the trash. When he turned back, he was smiling again.

“Our municipal police and politicians are the Fletcher Christians of modern society. They want control, but not responsibility. They’re staging a mutiny against the laws of democratic justice. Like Bligh, I’m backed up at the rail with a saber at my throat, offering you a chance to get in my leaking lifeboat. To sail a courageous voyage to help me free society from these lawless tyrants.”

“So you’re cast as our misunderstood commander, sent to prison by a bunch of ungrateful pricks because of a rigid management style?”

He stood there, his brow furrowed, angrily flexing the muscles in his jaw.

“The way I see this, it’s all part of the same fabric,” I continued. “We can talk about corruption and the broken-window theory, or the goal gradient phenomenon, but that’s just camouflage. What this is really about is revolution against social order and the real joke is you’re getting filthy rich while you’re doing it.”

He was standing opposite me, his eyes shadowed in the dark cabin, staring malevolently.

“A man can’t take everything and be everything at the same time. It creates isolation and that causes failure,” I said.

He pinned me with a withering gaze, then said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have other guests to entertain.” He turned abruptly and walked out.

CHAPTER 36

While I was at sea learning about broken windows and social corruption, Hitch had spent the day doing scut work on our two cases, trying to set up interviews with Lita Mendez’s balky neighbors and putting together a victimology profile on Hannah Trumbull. It had left him in a prickly mood.

One of the most important parts of a homicide investigation is establishing victimology. Neighbors and friends often know things about a victim that can be surprisingly helpful. I once worked a case where a neighbor told me the vic couldn’t wear cotton because it gave her a skin rash. The dead woman’s body was found in a motel lying on cotton sheets. But the neighbor had explained that when the victim traveled she always took silk sheets in her luggage to remake hotel beds. That information led us to realize the killer had obviously not known the woman well and was unaware of her allergy. He was trying to make it look like a suicide and had purchased new sheets to get rid of his semen stains. We were able to trace the sheets to a nearby Walmart, and a credit card led us to the killer. You never know where a case-breaking lead might come from.

The problem with Hannah’s victimology was the murder was more than four years old and over time memories for detail fade.

The problem with Lita’s death was nobody on her block wanted to talk to us. Hitch was visibly frustrated by the time I dropped into my chair at Homicide Special a little past 2:00 P.M. and propped my feet up on a wastebasket.

“That was an interesting day,” I said.

“Can’t have been as much fun as having forty neighbors bitch you out.”

“Palgrave thinks Nash is good people. Marcia told me to watch my back and Nix threatened me.”

“Just another rollicking good day with the animals,” Hitch replied.

“There was a moment there down belowdecks in the captain’s cabin when Nix started acting like a fifty-one- fifty,” I said, referring to the police code for a head case.

Hitch looked surprised. “You think he’s nuts?”

“I’m not sure.” I recounted Nix’s rant on William Bligh and how he saw the HMS Bounty as a metaphor for his career.

“At the end we had a real Jack Nicholson moment,” I concluded.

Hitch sat back and pondered it. Then he said, “So that’s all you took away? That a guy who we already know is an egomaniac also has delusions of grandeur?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Already knew that,” Hitch said, and picked up the phone sheet he was working his way through.

“Well, maybe there’s one other thing,” I said.

He glanced back up.

“It’s more of an impression than anything else. I was trying to goad him with the Lee Bob Batiste bust and he said something that came off strange.”

“Yeah?”

“He said Bobby was illiterate and semi-educated.”

“He probably was.”

“He didn’t say ‘Lee Bob’; he said ‘Bobby,’ like he was friends with him.”

“Now you are grasping. You can’t believe Nash intentionally blew that bust.”

“I didn’t say that. It just hit me funny.”

My phone rang and I picked it up. “Detective Scully,” I said.

“Shane, it’s Sue Shepherd. I’m sitting in the patio behind the Bradbury Building. You wanted to know when Captain Madrid or her husband was eating here. Well, they’re on the patio right now, having a late lunch.”

I checked my watch. Two thirty-five.

“Thanks, Sue.”

I disconnected and got to my feet. “Grab your coat. Let’s go.”

“What is it?”

“Fill you in on the way.”

We made it to the underground garage in two minutes and took Hitch’s car because I wasn’t sure the Acura hadn’t been bugged. On the six-block drive to the Bradbury Building I filled Hitch in.

“Since we can’t get a body warrant, I asked an investigating officer I know at the Bradbury to keep an eye on the cafeteria. She just called. Lester and Stephanie are on the patio having a late lunch.

“Wanta do a Dumpster dive?”

“Got a better plan?”

“As long as you do it, I think the idea smokes.”

We pulled in behind the building and moved carefully toward the patio dining area.

“Listen, I guess I should mention that Lester showed up outside my house this morning and tried to warn me off his wife’s investigation.”

“All we need now is Internet posts of us with strippers,” Hitch said.

“I think we should treat Lester with extreme care. If we blunder in there and start clocking these two, it could get nasty.”