Within Plain Sight

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  Byron was pacing the conference room when LeRoyer stuck his head through the doorway. “Everything okay?”

  “Ducky.”

  “Thought I heard some shouting from your office.”

  Byron took a deep breath. “Just giving Bernie a pep talk.”

  “How’s he working out?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Any progress on the case?”

  “Yeah, we just found out Danica was driving a different vehicle than we first thought.”

  “What?” LeRoyer said. “How did we miss that? I thought you said Faherty left her car at her apartment?”

  Byron, still fighting the urge to say something he’d later regret, answered calmly. “Her car was at her apartment, Marty. But she wasn’t driving it. She’d been using a loaner from the body shop. They returned it and parked it in her dooryard last Monday. The truck that Mrs. Micucci, the neighbor busybody, saw belonged to one of the body shop employees.”

  Byron watched the lieutenant open his mouth to say something else before closing it.

  “Dispatch put out an ATL for the loaner and Mel and I checked several locations but so far nada. Now we wait.”

  “You think the killer might still be using the loaner car?” LeRoyer asked.

  “Anything’s possible.”

  Byron had considered the possibility but found it highly unlikely. The person responsible for killing Dani Faherty would have to be completely inept to hang onto something that the police would inevitably come looking for.

  “Did you check with Parking Control?” LeRoyer asked.

  “First call I made,” Byron said. “The scoff system is down.”

  “That was pretty stupid,” Stevens said to Robbins as they walked across the plaza toward 109’s rear garage.

  “Screw Byron. He’s just taking it out on me because you guys haven’t solved this yet.”

  Stevens stopped walking as they reached the garage steps and turned to face him. “You guys? What? You’re not part of the team, Bernie?”

  “Riiight. More like a temporary homicide dick because you don’t have enough bodies. He’s got me calling up owners of parked cars, canvassing closed businesses, and looking for fucking padlocks. Screw him. I know what this shit is.” Robbins walked around her and continued up the steps into the garage. “Come on, Mel. We gotta go beat the bushes again, ’cause Lord Byron’s got a stick up his ass.”

  Stevens followed him to the car, shaking her head as she went.

  As Mel was pulling out of the garage onto Newbury St. Robbins got in one last jab. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be different when Crosby comes to the bureau.”

  They spoke with three different York Street businesses before hitting pay dirt. Riley & Sons Accountants owned the building that bordered the abandoned lumberyard. They also occupied one of the suites. Being that it was lunch hour neither Riley nor his offspring were present, but the detectives lucked out with an overly cooperative office assistant named Valerie.

  “Do you use a cleaning service, Valerie?” Stevens asked.

  “Sure, we do,” Valerie said. “In fact, all three businesses in this building use the same service. Mr. Riley makes the tenants agree to it as part of their lease.”

  “A friend?” Stevens asked.

  “Mr. R’s nephew, Clayton Newsome.”

  Stevens, who was recording the information in her notebook, paused long enough to glare at Bernie Robbins who couldn’t have appeared more disinterested if he’d tried.

  Robbins took the hint. “Don’t suppose you’d have Clayton’s contact information?”

  Newsome lived in Portland’s Parkside neighborhood in a Park Avenue flat situated directly across from Deering Oaks Park. His bright orange cleaning service van was parked in the dirt lot behind the building. Stevens stood in the entryway on the wrong side of a glass security door observing as Bernie pressed the call button for Newsome’s apartment for the third time.

  “Guess he’s not home,” Robbins said.

  Stevens shoved him aside and placed her hands over both rows of call buttons and pushed down on all of them simultaneously. “Of course he’s home, Bernie. He works nights.”

  The buzzer on the security door sounded loudly. Stevens grabbed the handle and pulled it open. She turned to Robbins. “You coming?”

  Stevens knocked on the door for a full minute before a sleepy-eyed and disheveled Clayton Newsome answered the door and invited them inside.

  “Yeah, I clean those offices on Tuesdays and Fridays,” Newsome said.

  “Clean them yourself, or one of your employees?” Stevens asked.

  “I have a part-time kid that helps out sometimes, but I’m always there.”

  “Do you remember working Monday night, July 10th?” Stevens asked.

  Newsome stared into space, appearing to work the math inside his head. “That was last Monday, right?”

  “Right,” Robbins said, finally bringing something to the table.

  Stevens resisted the urge to shoot eye daggers at her temporary partner again. “That’s right, Mr. Newsome. Last Monday night.”

  “I do remember that night, actually. That part-timer I mentioned called out sick.” Newsome grinned at Stevens. “Hungover is more like it. Anyway, I was late getting to York Street because I was solo. I’m pretty sure it was after two o’clock before I finally made it down there.”

  “So, it was actually early Tuesday morning at that point?” Stevens asked for clarification.

  “That’s right. Tuesday the 11th.”

  “That business borders an abandoned property,” Stevens said. “You know the one I mean?”

  “Yeah. The old Forest City Lumberyard.”

  “Do you ever have occasion to look into that yard?”

  “All the time. The York Street offices all share a common dumpster in the back lot. Whenever I take the trash out, or take a smoke break, I’m looking right at that place. Kids are always sneaking in there to hook up.”

  “Do you remember anything unusual happening there last Tuesday morning?” Stevens asked.

  “This would be easier if I had some coffee,” Newsome said as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “Take your time,” Stevens said.

  The detectives waited while Newsome’s sleep-muddled brain worked to recall the events of the previous week.

  “I don’t remember any—no wait! Yeah, there was something. Most of the time there are only people trespassing in there on foot. The only vehicles I ever see in there belong to the security company. Sometimes they pull in and sit with the lights off for an hour or so.” Newsome grinned. “Figure the guards must be catchin’ some Zs.”

  “And did you see the security company vehicle in the lot that night?” Robbins asked.

  “No, not last Tuesday. But I did see a truck pull in. Pickup. Whoever it was couldn’t have been there for more than ten minutes or so. I was dumping out the mop bucket when they pulled in through the gate. When I went back out with the trash a little while later the truck was gone.”

  “Can you describe the truck?” Stevens asked.

  “It was dark colored, I think.”

  “Anything else you can remember?”

  Newsome shook his head. “Nope, that’s about it. That help you?”

  Stevens and Robbins were headed back to 109 when he asked her to swing by the Dunkin’ Donuts at Congress and Oak.

  “Come on, Mel,” Robbins said. “I need a fix.”

  You need more than that, Stevens thought. Reluctantly she pulled to the curb and parked.

  “You coming?” he asked.

  “No. I’m fine. Hurry up. We’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Whatever,” Robbins said as he hoisted himself out of the car. “Maybe I’ll grab an éclair, too.”

  Stevens watched as Robbins slowly walked to the door then disappeared inside. She was fuming about his lack of effort when she heard her cellphone chime with an incoming text. Automatically, she unclipped her ph
one from her belt before realizing the noise hadn’t come from hers. She spotted Robbins’s cellphone lying in the floor well on the passenger side of the car. She unlatched her seat belt, struggled to reach over the console, and retrieved it. The text was from K Crosby.

  Where are you with the Faherty case?

  Stevens was speechless. Why is he having Robbins keep him up to speed on our case? she thought. Another message appeared below the first.

  I want an update. Call me.

  She looked up and saw Robbins heading back toward the car. Quickly she tossed the phone back onto the floor. Robbins opened the door and slid inside.

  “I got two éclairs,” Robbins said, pulling one of the bags and waving it around. “You sure you don’t want one?”

  “I’m good,” she said coldly. “By the way, I think you dropped your phone. It’s been making noises ever since you left.”

  “Shit. I wondered where it was.”

  She watched as Robbins retrieved it from the floor and checked the display.

  “Anything important?” she asked.

  “Nope. All good.”

  Stevens and Robbins returned to 109. Robbins said he had to return some calls, but Stevens knew he was just trying to avoid Byron and probably had to get back to Crosby. She briefed Byron on the cleaner’s account. The entire time she was talking she was also struggling with whether to tell him what had happened. She was no fan of Robbins, or Crosby for that matter, but she didn’t want to be a rat.

  “The timeline and the vehicle description, what little there was, matches up with what Winn told us,” Byron said.

  “What I was thinking,” Stevens said. “Probably discarded Faherty’s body then got rid of the head and clothes immediately afterwards.”

  “Thanks for handling that, Mel.”

  She stood there awkwardly, still trying to decide what to do.

  “Was there anything else?” he asked.

  Chapter 23

  Monday, 6:35 p.m.,

  July 17, 2017

  Byron sat alone in what passed for the kitchen/dining room of his North Deering condo. He was reviewing his case notes as well as copies of Gabe Pelligrosso’s most recent evidentiary supplements. He was growing frustrated that they hadn’t yet located Faherty’s loaner car, but he didn’t believe in wasting time. Reviewing the case for things they might’ve overlooked was never a waste. Byron had just finished reading over his notes from their visit to the body shop, with the charming Mr. Crump, when his cell began to dance across the table. The number displayed was from 109.

  “Byron,” he answered.

  “Hey, handsome,” a sultry female voice said.

  Byron recognized Mary O’Connell’s voice instantly. She had been dispatching for the Portland Police Department going on forty years, providing a lifeline of sorts to every boot and suit who ever kept watch over the Port City. A constant and calming presence at the other end of the radio, she’d let every cop know that someone had their back and that help was only a click away. And despite the massive technological advances that had come to the profession, the true measure of a great dispatcher still came down to one thing. Compassion.

  O’Connell had taken Byron under her wing when he was nothing more than a wet-behind-the-ear rookie. She had known and dispatched for Byron’s father, Reece, when he had still been on the job. Reece was gone, along with many others that Byron had depended upon, but Mary remained.

  “Hey, Mare,” Byron said. “What’s shaking?”

  “Me, if I was about twenty—okay—thirty years younger.”

  Byron laughed. She could always do that to him. No matter how tightly wound Byron was, Mary found a way through his armor, usually with something racy and inappropriate.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said.

  “Not at all, I’m just catching up on some homework. What’s up?”

  “I just got a call from Amy Connolly, the officer working the IO desk. It might be BS, but she says a guy just walked in claiming to be the Horseman.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup. Says he wants to turn himself in.”

  Byron grabbed his gun and badge and drove directly to 109. What had promised to be his first night off in nearly a week, maybe even offering some badly needed rest, had been canceled. Despite the feeling that he was being sent on a fool’s errand, Byron decided to summon the team. He made calls to Stevens, Nugent, and Tran. Predictably, his last call, to Robbins, went directly to voicemail.

  Byron parked in the rear garage and entered through the first-floor rear entrance hoping to get a look at the self-proclaimed killer before speaking with him. He approached the information desk, where Officer Amy Connolly was speaking to patrol Sergeant Andy Pepin, and looked out through the safety glass. The lobby was empty.

  “Where is he?” Byron said.

  “Right behind you, Sarge,” Connolly said. “We stashed him in the first-floor interview room.”

  Sergeant Pepin spoke up. “We searched him for weapons already, John. Didn’t want to take a chance with other people coming through the lobby.”

  “Good call. He give you a name?”

  “Yeah, here’s his license,” Connolly said as she handed it to him.

  The driver’s license, issued by the State of Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, identified the man as Kenneth Harper, 43 years of age. The address listed was Acadia Street in Portland, a neighborhood in East Deering with which Byron was infinitely familiar.

  “What did he say, exactly?” Byron asked Connolly.

  “He just walked in and said he needed to talk with a detective. I asked why he couldn’t talk to me and he smiled and said, ‘Because, I’m the Horseman.’ I put him in the interview room, so he wouldn’t just walk out the door, but it was more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was giving me the creeps, just pacing around the lobby and staring at me.”

  “Why I came in,” Pepin said. He cocked a thumb toward the interview room. “Whatever else he is, that is one strange dude.”

  Byron had Connolly and Pepin keep an eye on Harper while he prepared an interview room in CID. Additionally, he wanted Stevens present before they spoke. He knew the odds that this was the guy everyone was looking for were long, but stranger things had happened. And Byron had learned long ago the damage that assumptions can inflict on a case.

  As the other detectives arrived, Byron assigned each a task. Nugent would monitor from the conference room while he and Stevens conducted the interview. He handed Tran the information contained on Harper’s license and told him to start digging.

  “Use the computer in the conference room, Dustin,” Byron said. “I want you to check out every bit of information he provides us.”

  “You think he’s the real deal, Sarge?” Tran asked.

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Byron’s initial assessment of Kenneth Harper was that he was average. Average height, average weight, average-length dark hair, and brown eyes. But following a more critical appraisal, Byron noticed some odd things about him. Harper’s hands were larger than normal for a person his size, like a boxer. And there was something strange in his gait as he walked, as if his body needed a realignment. He was courteous, but again slightly off somehow. There was something wrong, but Byron couldn’t quite place it.

  Harper sat across from Byron and Stevens with his large hands folded atop the table. His expression remained neutral. If he was nervous, he showed no signs of it.

  Byron began the interview by making introductions, trying to keep things civil. If Harper did turn out to be Faherty’s killer, Byron didn’t want to provide any ammunition to the defense.

  “So, Mr. Harper,” Byron said. “I’m told—”

  “Call me Kenny.”

  Byron hesitated a beat before continuing. Was Harper just being polite or was he attempting to assert himself and control the direction of the interview?

  “Okay, Kenny,” Byron continued. “I’m
told that you’ve come here to confess to killing someone. Is that correct?”

  Harper grinned. “Not just someone, Sergeant. I murdered Danica Faherty.”

  “If that’s true, Kenny, I’m required to read you your rights.”

  Harper wasn’t technically in custody, having turned up at the station of his own volition, to provide a confession, but Byron and Stevens had decided to err on the side of caution. If Harper could prove his involvement in any of the murders, he would not be walking out of 109.

  “I understand,” Harper said.

  Byron proceeded to read the Miranda warning from a printed piece of paper, line by line, obtaining a verbal acknowledgement from Harper after each section. When he had finished reading, Byron had Harper sign and date the form at the bottom, affirming that he understood his rights.

  With the subtle efficiency of a new car dealer, Stevens removed the form from the table, sliding it into a file folder. Out of sight, out of mind.

  “What made you come here today, Kenny?” Byron asked.

  Nugent was sitting across the room from Dustin Tran, intently watching the monitor, when Lieutenant LeRoyer practically skidded into the CID conference room. The move reminded Nugent of a certain cartoon coyote.

  “Hey, Lieu,” Nugent said matter-of-factly.

  “What’s he saying about the murders?” LeRoyer asked breathlessly.

  “He’s only talking about Faherty at this point,” Nugent said.

  Tran jumped in. “So far he hasn’t given them anything that wasn’t in the papers or on televised news reports.”

  “No meat and potatoes,” Nugent added.

  “So, he’s nuts?” LeRoyer said, sounding disappointed.

  “My guess,” Nugent said.

  “Tell us again how you happened to pick Dani,” Byron said. “Was she an acquaintance of yours?”

  “No, I didn’t know her,” Harper said. “But she called to me, like the others.”

  Byron resisted the urge to roll his eyes in disbelief. He knew without turning to look at Stevens that she was having the exact same reaction.