Political Science 101

Chapter Thirty-Six

"DID HE leave a note?" The question was bestial, not benevolent; callous, not compassionate; devoid of emotion, demanding fact.

"Not that we found," spoke the words of a nervous young patrol officer who was working his first suicide, praying quietly that the crime scene unit would arrive soon and he could leave. "What was your relationship to the victim, ma'am?" His voice wavered slightly as he avoided turning around and again looking at the lifeless (and nearly headless) body of Jeb Larkin.

"Victim?" Lenore Sable replied in an annoyed and snarky voice. "He's no victim, he blew his own damn head off. Nothing happened to him. He happened to himself. Dumb bastard." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "And we didn't have a relationship; we were business associates." She took a breath, immediately regretting it because of the putrid smell.

Jeb Larkin's corpse had been rotting, undiscovered, since approximately Friday night and this was not how second-year patrol officer Gavin Thompson anticipated beginning his Monday shift. "I understand," Officer Thompson said nervously. "I just had to ask since you were the one who found the vic—uh, the body."

Lenore wondered for a moment how it was that she was seemingly more annoyed and frustrated by finding Jeb Larkin dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head rather than being mortified by the horrific and gory scene. The blood pooling on Larkin's den carpet, as well as the blood sprayed onto the wall of hanging animal heads behind his body, had dried into a brownish vermilion hue. His skin color was far beyond pale and the smell was the unmistakable stench of sulfur and death.

"Look," she exclaimed impatiently, "I just showed up here, he was dead, so I called you guys. That's all I know." She glared at him expectantly, waiting for him to allow her to leave.

"It's okay, Officer," said a voice from behind Lenore. Detective Lenny Knight strolled into the room as a walking cliché, exhibiting everything of the expected police detective quintessence. His long tan trench coat and his bargain-store navy blue suit were accentuated by his at-the-ready small yellow notepad and antiquated ballpoint pen in his hands. His demeanor was cool and suave and, of course, cliché.

Lenore held back a small chuckle.

"I just had once more question for her, Detective," Officer Thompson said with reservation.

"By all means," Detective Knight replied, raising an after-you arm toward him.

"Thank you, Detective," Officer Thompson stammered. "Ms. Sable, did Mr. Larkin have any housekeepers or cooks or anything? Seems like such a big house to not have a maid or something."

Detective Knight stepped a verbal foot into the conversation. "Yes, he did," Knight stated with gusto, "but he gave them all the weekend off." He continued to stroll moderately into the discussion.

"Well, whatever," Lenore said with more than a hint of continued annoyance in her voice. "I only came here on business."

"And what business might that be?" Knight asked.

"My business," Lenore snapped back with contempt.

"I see," Knight replied, shaking his head and giving Lenore a look of suspicion. He spoke as though he was speaking in a poorly-done Humphry Bogart impression.

However, Lenore could tell that it wasn't an impression at all; this was how he actually spoke. She found it difficult to take him seriously. As Knight continued to approach, Lenore got her first good look at him; a man in his mid-to-late forties (though he appeared to have aged a decade more than that), carrying the air of a man who expected to be so much more in life, but now seemed to merely over-do the mediocrity of the reality for which he'd settled in life. And truth be told, this was an accurate assessment. Ever since becoming a police officer at the age of 21, Lenny Knight held the long-standing goal of reaching federal-level law enforcement. But before turning 25, he'd been rejected by the FBI, the US Marshals, the Secret Service, and even (but not surprisingly) the CIA. And each rejection was based in the same reasoning: Knight had been struggling with a slight addiction to painkillers.

Knight's lifetime of chronic pain was the result of being shot in the back as a rookie cop by a white-power skinhead who was caught beating a black man because the skinhead saw him holding hands with a white woman. When Knight pulled his service revolver from his holster (for the first time in his career) and told the skinhead to stop, the skinhead pulled out a snub-nose .38 and emptied it in Knight's direction, one bullet striking him at the base of his spine as he ducked for cover. Rookie cop Lenny Knight never fired a shot of his own.

After ten months of physical rehabilitation, Lenny Knight was lauded a hero (presumably for not dying, since the suspect escaped unharmed), and he resumed his duties as a patrol officer, more determined than ever to reach the federal level; but also in more pain than ever, and Vicodin was the only thing that helped. Over time, Knight became known to his fellow officers as the "Dr. House of Law Enforcement" because of his misanthropic view of the world and his affinity for prescription painkillers.

"My business with Larkin was our business and had nothing to do with him blowing his own damn head off, okay?" Lenore did very little to hide her contempt for this man, a man whom she viewed as being beneath her.

"Oh, somehow I doubt that," Knight said with a sarcastic eyebrow raised. This showdown match of caustic personalities was an epic microcosm. But the facts remained unchanged and Detective Lenny Knight had excellent instincts; he'd developed his "gut feelings" that would rival those of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And at that moment, his gut was telling him that Lenore Sable was hiding something.

Lenore frowned in frustration as she turned to leave.

"We'll be in touch," Knight said to the briskly-departing heiress. He glanced and his notepad; he'd written nothing down.

"Is she a suspect?" Officer Thompson asked quietly as he subtly approached Detective Knight.

"No," Lenny replied, "but she knows something I need to know."

"Which is what?"

"Well," Detective Knight said, turning to Officer Thomson, "if I knew that, I'd already know." Lenny's sarcasm cup runneth over.

When the Crime Scene Unit arrived to take control of the room, Officer Thompson was relieved that his less-than-insightful question to his superior would be pushed into the past of the conversation.

Detective Lenny Knight glanced at his small yellow blank notebook again. Something didn't seem right.

Then again, nothing ever did.