Black Cat Weekly #85

Chapter 5

by“No offense, Officer Kintyre. But I’m smarter than you.”

Attorney Matt Glick leans back in his garden chair and smiles at Jodie Kintyre. The two sit across a wicker table with a glass top on the patio of Glick’s house, their glasses of iced tea sweating in the afternoon heat.

Detective Jodie Kintyre refuses to let him rattle her as she looks at her notes for her next question. In a crisp tan suit, her 9mm Beretta dangling in its shoulder holster beneath her left arm, Jodie brushes a strand of blond hair from her face, turns her wide-set hazel eyes back to Glick and asks, “When was the last time you saw your wife, counselor?”

Glick blinks his pale blue eyes, taking his time before responding, prim-looking in his silver shark-skin suit, his brown hair slicked back. He sits at ease in the sunlit, brick patio of his exquisitely furnished, three-story Creole Townhouse with its yellow stucco walls and wrought iron, lacework balconies and quaint roof dormers overlooking Royal Street. Matt Glick is unperturbed as he gives this formal statement. Earlier, before beginning his statement, Glick explained how his house was built in 1795, shortly after the last great fire that nearly destroyed New Orleans.

Glick answers slowly, as if he’s talking to a child, “Around 7:30 a.m., July fourteenth. We kissed goodbye as she left for work, and I spent the day in court. Judge Winslow tells me you’ve confirmed this.”

Behind the viewfinder of the video camera recording Glick’s statement, Detective John Raven Beau grits his teeth. This is Jodie’s show. He’s just running the camera as he stands quietly in his black suit, black shirt and tie, his own 9mm Beretta riding in its canvas holster on his right hip. Beau focuses his light-brown eyes through the viewfinder and waits patiently. At least the fans on the patio keep the air flowing.

Jodie asks, “She didn’t come home that evening and you called the police at 10 p.m., correct?”

“We’ve gone over this before. Can’t you come up with a more interesting question?”

Jodie stares at him until he finally says yes, that’s what happened.

Glick sighs and follows with a question of his own. “Kintyre. Is that English? Welsh?”

“Scottish. What’s Glick?” Jodie asks, knowing full well it’s German.

“Prussian. It was von Glick before my great grandfather changed it during the first World War.” Glick takes a sip of tea.

Jodie flips through her notes as she catches the scents of the flowers in the garden surrounding the patio.

“Take your time.” Glick patronizing now. “As I told my lawyers when they strongly advised me not to give you a formal statement, I’ve nothing to hide. You didn’t have to advise me of my rights like you did. Lawyers know our rights.”

stronglyHe’s relaxed enough, Jodie thinks. Good. Comfortable on his home turf.

He’s relaxed enough, Good. Comfortable on his home turf.“How did your wife’s blood get into the trunk of your El Dorado?”

Glick lets out a long breath and explains how his wife, a graphics artist, sliced her left index finger with an X-acto razor-knife two days before she disappeared.

“She used my car the night before she was killed to visit a potential client in Mandeville. Got a flat on the Causeway, drove to the nearest turn-around and changed the flat. That’s probably how the strands of her hair got inside the trunk. It was a hot night. She was all sweaty and said she finally had to put her hair in a ponytail to keep it out of her face.”

His answers are smooth, Jodie thinks. Well-rehearsed, most likely in front of a mirror.

His answers are smooth,Well-rehearsed, most likely in front of a mirror.“When she got home, she had to change the bandage because her cut reopened. Which explains her blood in the trunk. I told her she probably needed stitches, but she wouldn’t listen.” Glick leans back and brushes something off a leaf of one of the banana trees.

“Why didn’t she call Triple-A? You’re members.”

“Finally. A new question.” Glick sits up. “She forgot her cell phone at home.”

“There’s an emergency phone box at the turn-around.”

Glick sighs. “My wife was the impatient type. She liked doing things herself.” He waves his hands around. “Like this garden. She did it all herself.”

Jodie looks at the rows of rose bushes, dotted with white and red roses, neatly trimmed azalea bushes and rows of red geraniums, banana trees and dwarf palms.

“What about her blood we found in your bathtub?”

Glick puts his elbows on the table and cups his chin in the open palms of his hands. “The cut finger.”

“We found blood on the floor.”

“As I told you. The X-acto cut was deep. She changed the bandage several times. The wound probably dripped.”

“What about the scuff marks, from the soles of shoes, on the bathroom tile floor?”

“What about them?”

Jodie shuffles her papers for nearly a minute before pulling a long sheet of paper to hand to Glick. His eyes reveal a recognition, which he tries to hide.

“That’s a warrant for your arrest, counselor.”

“You’re arresting me?”

“After we fill out the paperwork.”

Glick’s face flushes. He drops the paper on the table and clears his throat. “Again, no offense Office Kintyre, but you’re of average intelligence. You have to know this’ll go nowhere. You can’t prove this.” His voice rises as he scoops up the arrest warrant again and looks at the bottom.

prove“I can’t believe you got a judge to sign this.”

He doesn’t comment that Judge Winslow signed the warrant. Jodie sees the man’s eyes dart as he reads the paragraph explaining the probable cause for arrest, primarily the blood and hair evidence. It does not mention the cab driver who ID’d Glick’s car diving at a high rate of speed on Almonaster Boulevard, not far from where his wife’s body was found, nor the tire mark evidence, nor the statements of friends about the turbulent Glick marriage. Let his lawyers learn that during discovery hearings.

Jodie pulls out another sheet of paper and a pen.

“This is an NOPD arrest report form. I’d rather fill it out here than at parish prison.”

Glick folds his arms and leans back in his chair. He closes his eyes.

Jodie puts the date and time at top of the arrest report. She puts in the victim’s name.

“Age? How old was your wife?”

“Thirty-five.” Glick’s eyes remain shut.

Jodie’s age, exactly.

“Height?” Jodie reaches for the coroner’s report but Glick answers first.

“Five-four. Weight, one-ten.”

Jodie writes in the word “red” under hair color and “brown” under eye color.

“Clothing?” She digs out her notes and writes in “yellow jumpsuit and brown pumps.” The jumpsuit wasn’t yellow when they found her in that ditch along the Almonaster Industrial Corridor three days after she disappeared.

“Date of Offense?” Jodie pauses and flips back through her notes. “We found the body on the seventeenth. Damn, wish the coroner could have been more specific about how long she’d been dead?”

Glick remains motionless as Jodie digs through her notes. She watches him surreptitiously as she continues flipping through the pages. The seconds tick by.

“Are we about done, Officer?”

“Almost.”

He’s impatient. Good. Jodie continues flipping papers, letting nearly a full minute to pass.

He’s impatient. Good.“Date and Time of Offense,” she says aloud. “What’s the damn date and time?” She waits a second before adding, “When did you kill her?”

“Midnight. The fourteenth,” Glick answers with his eyes still shut.

“Thanks. I’ll put that in.”

She keeps talking as she fills the form.

“Matthew W. Glick, white male, date of birth?”

He gives her his date of birth and social security number and other vital statistics as he puts his hands behind his head, his eyes shut tightly. As she’s finishing up the form, he yawns.

“Charge will be Second Degree Murder.”

Glick shakes his head.

“Can you initial this?”

He opens his eyes and says, “What?”

“Check it for accuracy and sign it.” Jodie passes him the form as she tries to look as though she’s calm.

Glick checks it over and pulls out a Mount Blanc fountain pen from his coat pocket.

“Sign where?”

“She points to an open box at the bottom of the form.” Jodie says as she purposefully drops some papers and leans over to pick them up.

When she sits back up, Glick slides the arrest report back to her. Lifting it, she checks that he signed it and carefully tucks it in her notepad.

“Not the neatest confession, but it’ll stand up in court.”

“Confession?” He sits bolt upright. “What confession?”

“I asked you when did you kill her and you gave me the date and time. We have no idea the date or time of her death. Only her killer knows.”

Glick’s eyes narrow and he leans back and laughs.

Jodie shrugs and says, “It was worth a shot.”

Glick continues laughing, nervously now, hands returning to the back of his head. Beads of perspiration dot his forehead.

Jodie starts digging in her purse and lets out a befuddled noise. She comes up with a set of keys and asks Beau if he’ll get her handcuffs out of the car.

“I left them in my briefcase.”

Beau catches the keys and steps back through the house. He returns a minute later with only the keys. This is a planned move. He could offer his handcuffs but that isn’t part of Jodie’s plan.

“They’re not in my briefcase?” Jodie’s voice rises.

Beau shakes his head.

Jodie gets up, bringing her notepad with the signed arrest report, but leaves her other notes on the table. She turns back to Glick and asks, “You’re not going to try and run off, are you counselor?”

“No, Officer Kintyre.”

Jodie and Beau step back into the townhouse and wait in the kitchen. They slip back to the French doors to peek through the curtains. It takes a minute before Glick sits up and slaps himself on the forehead. “Can’t believe I’m this dumb!”

Noticing Jodie’s papers, he scowls toward the French doors for a second, rises quickly and starts rifling her papers. Jodie pulls the arrest report out of her notepad as she steps back onto the patio. “Looking for this, counselor?”

She holds up the arrest report as she moves in front of the video camera.

Glick steps around the table and folds his arms. Beau remains in the doorway to the kitchen.

Jodie sits. “Is there anything you wish to add or take away from your statement?”

Glick seems to notice the camera.

“It’s still running,” she tells him. “I liked the part when you slapped your forehead. And yes, you can be this dumb, counselor.”

Glick’s face reddens. “This won’t stand up. It’s all trickery!”

“Not even you searching for the arrest report you signed? What were you going to do, tear it up?”

Glick leans forward and grabs the end of the table. He glares into Jodie’s eyes.

She tells him, “Counselor, you know full well trickery is acceptable in a court of law.”

He shakes so violently, the table quivers.

Jodie nods at the camera. “You forgot it was on, admit it.”

Glick lunges for the camera but Beau is faster and steps between the counselor and the tripod. At 6’2”, Beau is a good six inches taller than Glick. At twenty-seven, he’s a good ten years younger.

“Don’t know if I mentioned it, but my partner, Detective John Raven Beau is half Sioux.”

Quivering as Glick stands face to sternum with Beau, Glick looks up, tries staring Beau down. Big mistake. Beau returns the stare with his own, well-practiced, cold-eyed stare of the plains warrior. Jodie thinks of mentioning how her partner’s killed three men, all good shootings, but looking at Beau’s eyes, she knows it isn’t necessary.

Glick finally backs off, hands clenched in fists and shouts, “This is bullshit!”

“Is there anything you wish to add or take away from your statement?”

Glick points to the camera. “I guarantee no jury will ever see this film.”

Jodie announces, “This concludes the statement of Matthew W. Glick.” She turns to Beau and nods to the camera. Beau reaches around to turn it off, misses the button and lets it run a little longer.

“If you’d be so kind at to cuff him,” Jodie asks her partner.

Beau reaches around for his handcuffs, tucked into his pants at the small of his back and Glick explodes. He tosses the table at Jodie, who falls straight back.

“You damn b***h!” Glick kicks at her. “You tricked me!”

He lifts a chair over his head and Beau tackles him, sending him hard to the bricks. It takes Beau three seconds to cuff and lift him.

“Had enough, counselor?” Beau’s voice is heard on the tape for the first time. Turning Glick around, Beau searches him as Jodie shoves her skirt down, brushes herself off and moves back to the camera.

“You all right?” Beau asks.

Jodie nods.

“The red light’s still on,” she says. “Thought you turned it off.”

“I thought I did.”

The jury probably got a good view up her skirt. The men should enjoy the flash. Jodie looks back at Glick and says it seems they’ve recorded his attack.

“Go to hell!” Glick screams.

Jodie faces the camera, but before she turns it off, she says, “You know, counselor. Only the guilty can be tricked.”

“I want my lawyer!” Glick shouts.

Jodie turns off the camera and finally lets a smile cross her face.

* * * *

* * * *Eleven months after his statement was taken, a jury finds Matthew W. Glick, Attorney-at-Law, guilty of his wife’s strangulation murder. Although the circumstantial evidence was presented, the videotaped statement of the defendant, played in open court, seemed to be the most persuasive piece of evidence presented by the prosecution. Glick is currently serving a mandatory life sentence at hard labor in Angola State Penitentiary without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence.

His wife is buried in a walled tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 on Esplanade Avenue, Mid-City New Orleans. Jodie Kintyre and her partner visit her every few months. There is no satisfaction in their visits, no closure, no peace of mind. It doesn’t make them feel good to visit.

But they still visit.

O’Neil De Noux (www.oneildenoux.com) has 47 books published, more than 400 short story sales, and a screenplay produced in 2000. His writing has garnered a number of awards including the Shamus Award twice, the Derringer Award and Police Book of the Year (awarded by PoliceWriters.com). Two of his stories have been featured in the The Best American Mystery Stories (2003 and 2013). He is a past Vice-President of the Private Eye Writers of America.

The Best American Mystery Stories