Chapter 5
Detective Jonathon Kratz did not like people. He neither liked them in the general sense nor all the way down to the singular level of the individual. He had three years left on the force before he qualified for the full retirement package and was longing for the day when he could move out to the great expansive nothingness of Wyoming to live his remaining years in relative peace.
He rubbed his temples, as he continued to wait for the new detective in training to arrive for his first day. Two weeks ago, the Police Chief had called him to his office to discuss the promotion of Frank Montgomery. The Chief explained what Jonathon already knew. Frank's father, Cecil, carried a lot of political clout in the city and though the department had wanted to terminate Frank altogether, word had come down through the mayor’s office that they needed to promote him instead. Jonathon didn’t allow the gossip of ineptitude and recklessness surrounding Frank to enter into his judgment. He would train him well and Frank would either succeed or fail on his own.
He removed his hands from his temples and went back to drawing geometrical shapes onto the pad that lay on the center of his desk. Afternoon sunlight poured in through the westward facing window and reflected off his wedding ring. At the age of 59, Jonathon was a widower. He had been widowed for most of his life. His mind traveled back to the age of 22 when he married his bride, Beth, in a quiet ceremony at their synagogue in Eugene. Back then he was working for the Lane County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy. They had spent their wedding night in Portland, and then the following morning boarded a plane for an all-inclusive stay at a couples resort in Negril, Jamaica. Since both Beth and himself had remained celibate up until their vows, the sex had been awkward and clumsy. But the sun, sand, and surf combined with unlimited amounts of food and alcohol more than made up for those shortcomings. Their fourth full day of marriage had begun with the amateur amore in the bedroom; a full breakfast that lasted into lunch and then the drinking began. They had ended the afternoon at the cliffs by Rick’s Café watching riskier and less weight laden visitors leap from the cliffs and plunge into the waters below. After a picture perfect sunset, they climbed aboard the courtesy bus and made their way back to the room. Jonathon fuzzily remembered once again making love to his wife before rolling over and passing out somewhere around nine that night. Much more vividly he remembers waking up at four the next morning in urgent need of the restroom. When he returned to the bed he snuggled up next his new wife, only to find her somewhat cold. He very quickly determined that she was no longer breathing.
There was no suicide note or any indications that Beth had been suicidal. The death was ruled an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Over the years Jonathon had done further research to discover that based upon Beth’s body mass, she would have needed to take approximately twelve pills to have that concentration of drugs in her body at the time of death. He had spent countless hours researching every possibility, regardless of its plausibility, and always came up without answers. It was very difficult for him to believe that she had committed suicide and even more difficult to believe that anyone could take twelve pills by accident. To this day he remained baffled by her death and felt completely inadequate to be a husband. Back at his apartment he still maintained a round table in the corner of his living room as a shrine with photographs of their short time together and the original pill bottle with the original remaining seventeen pills. Macabre by anyone else’s standards, he was certain; but he really didn’t care what others thought, nor did he entertain.
Frank Montgomery finally arrived thirty-eight minutes after the hour. He was very debonairly dressed in a dark navy blue suit, light blue shirt and maroon and yellow tie. After a brief greeting and as soon as he was settled into the chair Jonathon began.
“Where are the doughnuts?” he asked while spreading his arms and in an expectant manner.
“Um, what do you mean?” Frank responded with uncertainty and confusion.
“It’s always the junior detective’s job to bring the doughnuts,” Jonathon explained. Then continued, “Don’t worry, you’ll get reimbursed from petty cash as long as you get a receipt.”
“Well, sir, I don’t eat doughnuts,” Frank stammered.
“What do you eat with your coffee?” Jonathon inquired.
“Sir, I rarely drink coffee either,” Frank answered with growing confidence.
Jonathon, in an exaggerated gesture, hefted his large frame from his chair and turned to where he could look out above the cubicles and address his fellow detectives and support staff. In a very derisive tone and loud deep voice declared, “Well, I never. Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that our newest recruit neither drinks coffee nor eats doughnuts!” As the office began to murmur and chuckle, Jonathon, very quickly for his size, turned back around and thudded into his chair. He raised his right arm and with considerable force smashed his right fist down onto the pad at the center of his desk. “I don’t give a good god damned if you don’t care for doughnuts,” he bellowed. “It’s still your job as junior detective to bring them for the rest of us that do! If you had asked anyone even one question about your new job, you would have known this de-tec-tive.” Spitting out the last word as if it contained a foul flavor. “You have fifteen minutes to get back here with the doughnuts and since you were already late, I’m docking you for your first full hour,” he finished, as Frank quickly left the cubicle and scurried out of the room.
It was always important to break the balls of a new recruit Jonathon had mused as he began to chuckle. Frank had just made this a little easier than normal. His phone began to ring and as he answered the call informing him of a murder at the City Lights Motel, he immediately regretted his actions.
It wasn’t ideal to involve a junior detective in a murder investigation on his very first day, but it would’ve happened sooner or later. He would limit Frank’s involvement to ‘observer’ and then discuss the case in detail with him once it was solved.
He jotted down what little information was provided and impatiently awaited Frank’s return.
Frank had no idea where people went to buy doughnuts other than Voodoo Doughnuts, which was located around the corner on SW 2nd Street. The only reason he knew of Voodoo Doughnuts was because every year they held a competition called Cockfest where men would compete to see who could hold the most doughnuts on their erect cocks. He had always been envious of the employees that were allowed to judge the contest. The problem with Voodoo Doughnuts was that they always had a line reaching around the corner and at least halfway down the block. There was no way he could go there, wait in line, and be back in fifteen minutes. So, he unknowingly passed Dunkin’ Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme as he sped up Burnside to the Fred Meyer’s grocery store. He literally ran into the bakery section and asked the elderly lady behind the glass counter for a dozen doughnuts. The lady informed him that they did not sell fresh baked doughnuts in the afternoon, but he could find doughnuts on aisle fifteen with the cookies and crackers. The doughnuts on aisle fifteen were small and packaged in bags. Being unsure how many were needed, Frank grabbed four bags and impatiently stood in line for checkout. By the time he returned to the Police Bureau, the task had taken him a total of thirty-five minutes.
Jonathon was quite agitated when Frank finally did return. He quickly assessed the four bags of Hostess Doughnuts and immediately threw them in the trash declaring them to be inedible. He then grabbed Frank by the arm and hustled him back down to the parking lot and headed out towards the City Lights Motel.
“We’re going to assess the scene,” Jonathon began. “Every crime scene contains clues and evidence, so it is important that we avoid disturbing the scene as much as possible prior to the technicians coming in and doing their job. It is also important that we view the scene without bias, as to not jump to any preconceived notions. Let the evidence lead us,” he finished.
He glanced over at Frank and could tell that he was still fuming. “Listen,” Jonathon continued. “Don’t sweat the doughnuts. I was just trying to break your balls and lighten the mood. Right now we need to be completely focused on solving this crime. We’ll be spending a lot of time together over the next several days.”
“I’m not your lackey,” Frank responded in a shaky voice. “Nor do I allow people to treat me as one.”
Good, Jonathon thought. The kid actually has some balls. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. He had already determined that Frank was insecure and even though Jonathon didn’t like people, he was very good at reading them. The fact that Frank had overcome his insecurity to spit that statement out was encouraging. Who knew what it must’ve been like to grow up in the Montgomery family, Jonathon mused. Cecil Montgomery had a reputation as a brutal power player in Portland and although Jonathon wasn’t directly involved, there remained unanswered questions within the department surrounding the death of Cecil’s first wife who was also Frank’s mother.
The parking lot of the City Lights Motel was busier than it had ever been over the last several decades. Police vehicles were everywhere and room twenty-seven, including the immediate surrounding area, was sealed off with police crime scene tape. Jonathon exited the vehicle, nodded to one of the officers and headed off to speak with the patrol supervisor who had first responded to the call.
After a brief conversation, he turned to Frank and handed him a pair of latex gloves and paper booties. “Put these on,” he instructed. “The victim is on the bed with a knife in his back. There are no noticeable signs of forced entry. The knife, the body, and the room are going to give us the evidence we need to find the butcher. If you feel like you are going to be sick, please step outside.”
Frank was in a state of shock. He was standing at the entrance to the very room Michael had used with the whore earlier that morning. He awkwardly put the booties on over his shoes and with even more difficulty maneuvered the gloves finger by finger onto his hands.
He followed Jonathon into the room and his eyes immediately locked onto the most amazing ass he had ever seen. He felt a slight movement in his trousers as he jealously thought of Michael having fun with that ass earlier in the day. He felt as if he were in an alternate reality as he watched Jonathon circle the body inspecting it from many angles and then realized that he could also approach the body and check out the cock that was certainly hanging in front of those nicely shaped balls.
“I would say the time of death was approximately seven to nine hours ago, based on hypostasis and rigor mortis,” Jonathon declared. He further explained that hypostasis is the amount of blood pooling in the lower parts of the body and that rigor mortis starts approximately two hours after death in the smaller muscles and gradually progresses. “Of course, the ME will be able to give us a more precise time,” Jonathan concluded.
“It couldn’t have been more than seven hours,” Frank blurted in an attempt to be helpful.
“Why do you say that?” Jonathon queried with an amused and truly baffled expression.
“Well,” Frank began. He knew that Michael was here fucking the lucky shit at that time, but he also recognized that he was tired from only having a few hours of restless sleep earlier that day. “Certainly no one could be dead that long before it was called in,” he finished with uncertainty in his voice. At the same time, he was beginning to develop a plan in his mind. This just might be the ticket for him to finally meet Michael. Michael was probably one of the last people to have seen the whore alive. As a material witness, Frank could possibly seduce him under the pretence of an ‘interview.’
“I’ve been doing this a long time Frank,” Jonathon continued. “But we’ll know for sure by tomorrow morning after the ME examines the body.”
Frank worked up his nerve and approached the body. He wondered if he was allowed to touch the body as Jonathon had carefully done. He tentatively reached his hand up to the left buttock and leaned over to try and catch a glimpse of the whore’s cock. Jonathon grabbed his wrist prior to making contact and he was sternly reminded that his job was that of an observer only.
Frank stood up and could feel his face redden. “Sorry,” he stammered as he tried to regain his composure. “I was just trying to see what you meant by blood pools and rigor mortis.”
“Not a problem,” Jonathon replied. “I’ll be happy to demonstrate that in detail tomorrow at the ME’s office after they’ve completed their exam. For now, lets look at the knife.”
Frank meekly followed Jonathon over to the other side of the body and stared at the knife still stuck in the whore’s back. He was shocked at the lack of blood. It was then that his eyes fell to the face, or lack thereof. There was blood, bone, a partial eye and broken teeth. The nausea came faster than he would have thought possible and he didn’t quite make it out of the motel room before he started spewing the remains of his breakfast. He finished vomiting while kneeling over a small bush in front of the sidewalk that wound its way around the motel.
Jonathon was elated that Frank had lost it. He had noticed the fascination; including what he thought might be the start of an erection as Frank had ogled over the victim. Jonathon was beginning to be somewhat concerned. Well, at least he’s human, Jonathon thought.
Frank was beyond embarrassed. He had spent hours and hours perusing photos of dead bodies on the Internet knowing that at some point he would need to actually see one. And yet, he still couldn’t hold it together. Even worse, he didn’t want to go back into that room. The mental image of what he had just seen came back and he began to heave again; although, this time, there wasn’t much left in his acidic stomach to come out.
Jonathon eventually came out of the room and instructed Frank to wait in the car while he spoke with the crime scene investigators.
“I’ve initiated a 360 photo of the room,” Jonathon began to babble when he returned to the car 45 minutes later. “Fingerprinting, vacuuming for other evidence, patrols canvassing the neighborhood, videotapes from nearby businesses, blah, blah blah.” Frank heard.
“Well, we know three things for certain.” Frank declared. “First thing is the ‘victim’ is a whore. Second, the killer is a man. And thirdly, he is a ‘fag’,” using his fingers to form quotation marks for the words victim and fag. Frank cringed slightly at using the word fag, but he desperately wanted to fit in amongst his peers at the PPD and thought that this was the best approach.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Jonathon responded. “Although, we cannot use the word certain until we’re actually positively certain. There was a small amount of heroin found in the room with the usual paraphernalia, which could indicate a drug motivation and there is no sign of the victim’s wallet that could indicate robbery. Also,” he continued while turning to give Frank a piercing and penetrating gaze directly into his soul, “the Portland Police Department doesn’t condone using the word ‘fag’ when speaking of members in our gay community. Personally, I find the word offensive and I don’t ever want to hear you use it in my presence again.”
Frank flinched, and Jonathon thought ‘check’. His perceptive qualities were still up to par. Other people’s sexuality had never bothered Jonathon and quite honestly, he could care less about the use of the word and had probably used it himself on occasion. They had to be called something, he reasoned.
“The sketch artist will have us a rendering of the victim within the hour,” he explained to Frank. “Right now you and I will interview the manager and staff of the motel. Then I’ll need you to have the PR department put together a release for the media and let me review it for final approval. Then we’ll meet with vice to try and find out who the victim was, who his johns are, and who he associates with. It’s going to be a long night and tomorrow will even be longer, but we’ll nail the bastard who did this. I guarantee it.”
The manager of the motel was a total creep. He claimed to have no idea who had been in room twenty-seven and that it had been vacant for several weeks. The housekeeper who discovered the body did not speak English and wouldn’t be available until the following day as she had become overwrought with anxiety and was now resting with the assistance of medication.
Normally Jonathon would have persuaded the manager to be completely honest regardless of his cash deals; but, because the maid had freaked out to the point that she required medical attention, Jonathon decided to come back and interview them tomorrow.
Writing the press release had proved very challenging for Frank. After spending an hour and a half, he finally came up with his final version. It was difficult because he remembered that he couldn’t use anything that might be speculative.
“A young white male was found stabbed to death in the City Lights Motel this morning by the PPD. If you have any information pertaining to the identity of this man or circumstances surrounding his death, please contact Detective Frank Montgomery or Detective Jonathon Kratz in the Robbery Homicide division.”
When he presented the press release to Kratz, Jonathon had burst out in full laughter. “No!” he had exclaimed. “I didn’t mean for you to write the release.” He reached over his desk to a stack of trays and retrieved a form, which he tossed across the desk. “Simply fill out this form and turn it into PR. They’ll write the release and submit it back to us for approval. If we had had time for training prior to being called out, you would have known the procedure. Although,” Kratz admitted, “it’s not bad.”
The meeting with vice had been very interesting for Frank. Apparently, the vice squad’s budget had been slashed years ago when the mayor dictated to the police force the public’s desire to live in a less policed environment when it came to drugs and sex. Currently, the vice squad only dealt with underage prostitution and ‘hardcore’ drug suppliers. They did not know the identity of the victim and could only supply the known areas of gay street prostitution and thirteen specific addresses for male escorts that advertised over the Internet and in print publications. They had taken note of the heroin packaging; however, and said that they would get back to them with any information as soon as they could track down the source.
By ten that night Frank was exhausted. He had been handed a stack of forms filled out by the patrol officers who had done the canvassing throughout the immediate area and was beginning to doze off while trying to read the varied and cramped handwriting.
He awoke to a tap on his shoulder, quickly realizing that he had fallen asleep and that drool had formed onto the paperwork under his face. He slowly lifted his head and saw the cup of steaming coffee next to the chocolate laden Bavarian crème doughnut.
He took a sip of the coffee and a large bite from the doughnut. At that point he felt as if they were the best things he had ever tasted in his entire life.