She grinned. “It’s okay, I rarely wear one.”
“I get it, Jim,” Byron said. “And I know you’re just trying to caution us, but all the facts point to Alex as the suspect in Dani’s murder. I will not be bullied into backing down, no matter how famous or powerful the Stavros family may be.”
Ferguson smiled as he stood up. “All right then. That’s what I wanted to hear. Let’s get this to a judge.”
Chapter 26
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.,
July 19, 2017
Alex Stavros was livid. In addition to walking him out of the restaurant just as they were about to open for dinner, Byron had let him stew in the interview room for over an hour giving Nugent and Pelligrosso time to get started on the search of Angelina’s West End house.
Byron entered the interview room, placed a bottled water in front of Alex, then sat down.
“Do you have any idea how long you’ve kept me in here, Sergeant Byron? This is ridiculous. I have been more than accommodating. What’s this now, the third time you’ve questioned me?”
“Seventy-five,” Byron said.
“What?”
“How long I’ve kept you in here. Seventy-five minutes.”
“That’s funny. Some kind of cop humor, I guess. Well, we’ll see how funny you think it is when I sue you, the department, and this whole goddamned city.”
“Sounds like we both have the same goal,” Byron said.
“And what might that be?”
“Dragging the other into court. Of course, the court I plan on dragging you to is of the criminal variety. Tends to carry more weight.”
Alex jumped out of his chair. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit. I’m out of here.”
“Sit down, Mr. Stavros!” Byron commanded.
The surprise on Alex’s face gave him away. He sat.
“At the moment, you’re not free to go anywhere. You are in custody.”
“You haven’t read me my rights,” Alex said. “I know my rights.”
“I haven’t asked you any questions. But I can see you’re anxious to get started, so why don’t we get down to it.”
Byron went through the well-rehearsed procedure of Mirandizing Stavros. When he had finished, he slid the typewritten sheet over in front of Alex.
“What am I signing?”
“That you understand your rights as I’ve read them to you.”
Alex grabbed the pen and scribbled illegibly across the bottom of the page. “There. Happy?”
Byron ignored the question. He slid the Miranda warning into the file folder and removed another document. “You’re probably wondering why I brought you in?”
“Quota?” Alex swallowed nervously but his eyes never left the sheet of paper in front of Byron.
“No, it’s not because of a quota, Mr. Stavros. I brought you here because I hate being lied to. Fact is, you’ve been lying to me since we started this investigation. Why did you lie about being in Portland the night Danica Faherty went missing?”
“I didn’t. I told you I was at a restaurant owners convention in Boston. Split a hotel room with an old college buddy and I didn’t return until Sunday afternoon. Late.”
Byron nodded. “That would be George Martin?”
“Correct. You’ve talked to him then?”
“We have. Twice, in fact. Turns out your old college buddy isn’t quite the stand-up guy you imagined. He just finished giving a statement to a Boston homicide detective. Would you like to know what he—well—why don’t I just let you read it for yourself.” Byron slid a copy of the statement in front of Alex.
Alex hesitated for a moment.
“Go on,” Byron said. “It’s a good read. I think you’ll find it interesting anyway.”
Alex picked up the page and began to read.
Byron felt his cell vibrate in his coat pocket. He checked and saw a text from LeRoyer. Alex’s attorney in lobby. U should end this.
Byron shot a quick glance up at the camera, knowing that the lieutenant was watching, and gave a slight shake of his head.
Alex finished reading the statement and set it back on the table.
“You probably see now why I found it interesting,” Byron said. “Right now, I have a team of detectives and evidence technicians executing a search warrant on your mother’s house.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that.”
“Actually, I can. It’s called probable cause and you’ve given us a mountain of it.”
The team of detectives Byron mentioned consisted of Detectives Stevens, Nugent, Robbins, and Evidence Technicians Pelligrosso and Murphy. They had obtained a key to Angelina Stavros’s Bowdoin Street mansion and were now standing in the home’s front entry hall.
The two-story hall was ornately decorated in a combination of dark wood trim paneling and expensive-looking wallpaper. Dominating the space was a massive curved hardwood staircase, its center carpeted by an oriental runner secured by brass stair rods, leading up to the second floor. Large framed oil paintings graced the walls.
“Jeez,” Nugent said. “This is like an episode of that show with Robin Leach.”
“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?” Robbins asked.
“I was thinking more along the lines of Rich and Shameless,” Nugent replied.
“Where do you want to begin?” Stevens asked Pelligrosso.
Pelligrosso scanned the room before speaking. “Let me snap some photos before we start. We’ll take it one room at a time. Murph, I want you to be the clearing house. Log every piece of evidence, who found it, where it was located.”
“Got it,” Murphy said.
Robbins spoke up. “Jeez, we could be here all night. Why don’t we start in the most likely place for evidence, the bedroom?”
Nugent gave him a cold glare. “Relax, Bernie. We want to get this right.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
Stevens turned to Robbins and Gardiner. “By the book. Gabe takes pictures of everything before it gets seized. Glove up, top to bottom, left to right, bag, tag, and log. Nothing gets overlooked. Got it?”
“Got it, Mel,” Nugent said.
Robbins grunted.
Alex Stavros stared back at Byron but said nothing. His prior cockiness had departed and left him looking scared.
“We know you met up with Danica Faherty Saturday night,” Byron said. “You drove up in your good buddy’s car to have sex with her. And we know you met her at your mother’s abandoned house on Bowdoin Street. The same place you’ve been meeting up with her for the past few months.”
Byron paused to give Stavros an opportunity to respond. Stavros dropped his gaze to the table. He appeared to be considering his options. After a moment Byron continued.
“I also have a warrant to obtain swabs of your DNA.” Byron removed an envelope and vial and set them on the table. “You see Danica had sex with someone just before she was killed, but when George alibied you we were forced to think it was somebody else. But now—”
“What if I don’t want to consent to a DNA thingy?” Alex asked.
“A warrant means that you don’t have the right to refuse.”
“I want my lawyer.”
Much of the furniture in the Stavros house remained. Evidently Lina had other decorating and design ideas for her new Scarborough home on Prouts Neck and they didn’t involve sentimentality. The team had been searching for close to an hour and a half when finally Byron arrived.
“Hey, Sarge. How’d it go with Alex?” Murphy asked.
“He lawyered up.”
“Did we get his DNA?” Stevens asked.
“Yes, despite his dramatic protests. Should have been an actor himself. Find anything yet?”
“Remember what Doc Ellis said about the body being stored someplace cool before it was dumped?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Lina’s got a walk-in cooler,” Stevens said “And it’s functional.”
Byron remembered Dr.
Ellis’s comment, but a walk-in cooler didn’t make Alex guilty of anything except extravagance.
“We find anything incriminating?” Byron asked.
“Not yet, but—”
“I think we just did,” Pelligrosso said, causing everyone to look up.
“What did you find, Gabe?” Byron asked.
“Follow me.”
They gathered in the ornately decorated kitchen with its ten-foot tin-covered ceiling and oversized stainless Viking range. Byron wasn’t much of a gourmand—more of a microwave and takeout man—but even he couldn’t help wondering how someone who could afford a top-of-the-line appliance would simply abandon it. He wondered if someone like that was equally capable of discounting the value of a human life. Danica Faherty’s life.
Pelligrosso picked up a handheld alternate light source and switched it on. “Someone get the lights.”
Murphy reached over and killed the lights.
“Take a look at this,” Pelligrosso said as he angled the yellow band of light across the papered wall. Even amid the complex multicolored pattern of the wallpaper, a fine dark spattering showed up clearly.
“Blood?” Byron asked.
“If I had to guess, yes. Looks like spray that was missed during cleanup.”
Byron realized that the evidence, if it was Faherty’s blood, was consistent with Doc Ellis’s theory that someone took a hammer to the back of Dani’s skull. The high impact nature of a claw hammer striking and penetrating a live human’s skull would undoubtedly result in a fine mist of blood spraying over any surfaces near where the attack occurred.
“And that’s not all,” Pelligrosso continued. “Look at this.” He shifted to the center of the parquet floor causing the other investigators to step back in order to give him room. Switching to a reddish frequency on the ALS, he projected it at the floor. The boards appeared normal but the seams between them glowed brightly in what resembled a circular pattern, previously invisible to them.
“Blood was spilled here,” Pelligrosso said. “Someone did an okay job cleaning up the surface of the floor, but as you can see, they missed the blood that seeped down between the boards.”
“Jesus,” Robbins said. “We don’t get much of this on the property crime side of the house. That’s nasty.”
“You think that’s nasty?” Nugent said, his voice floating out of the dark and causing them all to jump. “Take a look at this.”
They followed Nugent down a flight of creaking wooden steps to the basement. Like most houses its age, and in compete contrast to the elegant home sitting atop it, the foundation was a combination of granite and brick with an earthen floor. Dimly lit by low wattage bulbs the subterranean space was musty and damp. An assortment of cobwebs hung from many of the rafters.
“Watch your step,” Nugent said as he led them to a point directly beneath the kitchen and aimed his flashlight at a discolored area in the dirt.
“It seeped through?” Robbins said, surprise evident in his voice.
“You tell me,” Nugent said, repositioning the light so that it shone straight up at the boards comprising the subfloor.
There was no need for an alternate light source this time. Byron could clearly see the reddish-brown remnants of blood that had soaked through from above, leaving a dark stain on the sub-flooring beneath.
“That’s sick,” Robbins said.
“That’s evidence,” Nugent corrected.
Chapter 27
Thursday, 3:30 a.m.,
July 20, 2017
Byron sat across from AAG Jim Ferguson drinking strong black coffee. The two men occupied a table at Denny’s, one of the few remaining bastions of the twenty-four-hour breakfast.
“Give me the rundown,” Ferguson said, looking as weary as Byron felt.
“Okay. Assuming the blood we found belongs to Dani Faherty, the Stavros house is definitely our murder scene.”
“How long before you’ll have definitive confirmation?”
“Two or three days hopefully. The attack happened in the kitchen. Gabe located evidence of blood spatter on several cabinet doors and on the wallpaper, which is consistent with Ellis’s finding that she was struck in the head with a single blow from the claw end of a hammer.”
“Wouldn’t the killer have tried to clean it up?” Ferguson asked.
“Don’t think he saw it. The cupboard doors are made from dark wood, mahogany maybe, and the wallpaper is a very similar color to the spatter. Someone did attempt to clean up the blood that pooled on the floor, except it had already worked its way down between the boards and subfloor into the basement before they could get to it.”
“And whoever it was didn’t notice?”
“Would you?” Byron asked.
“No, probably not. So where was Danica’s body between Sunday and Wednesday morning?”
“We think the killer may have moved the body into the walk-in cooler to buy some time before moving it to the lumberyard,” Byron said.
“They have a walk-in cooler?”
“Apparently, Angelina used to throw a lot of parties at the old house. I guess they needed a walk-in.”
Ferguson shook his head in disbelief. “Sounds like Alex is planning to continue throwing them. If he’s not in prison, that is.”
Ferguson held his cup up for the waitress who had swung by to refill them. After she departed, he asked, “How did the body get from the house on Bowdoin Street to the lumberyard?”
“I don’t know,” Byron said. “Obviously, a vehicle of some kind. According to Winn, Erwin Glantz, whoever it was may have used a truck. Although, that’s based entirely on his alcohol-muddled recollection of what he heard.”
“Glantz is our dumpster guy, right?” Ferguson asked.
“Yeah. Winn said he was awakened by someone driving up in a vehicle with a loud exhaust. Whoever it was tossed the trash bag containing Dani’s head into the dumpster, then drove away.”
“So, we’re still looking for a vehicle with a loud exhaust.”
“There was something else he said, though. It sorta stuck with me. Winn said he heard the door slam shut. He described it as sounding like a door on a truck.”
Ferguson lifted a brow. “What’s a truck door sound like?”
“Older model maybe. Not a lot of padding. Like metal banging against metal.”
“Alex have a truck?”
“No.”
Both men sat in silence sipping coffee and mulling over case facts.
After a bit Ferguson spoke up again. “So, are we thinking one or two people to move the body? I guess what I’m asking is, do we have an accomplice we need to locate?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Byron said. “I’m not sure. If Alex is the killer, he’s certainly strong enough to move Dani’s body without help.”
“How much did she weigh?”
“Only a hundred and ten pounds, and without her head she would have been closer to a hundred.”
Ferguson scratched his graying beard stubble as he considered it. “So, really anyone could have dragged her body into a truck and dragged it back out again, right?”
“Where are you going with this?” Byron asked. “Sounds like you’re trying to poke a hole in my case against Alex Stavros.”
“Not at all,” Ferguson said. “I’m just trying to slide into the shoes of the defense if we charge him.”
“All right then, who is your alternate suspect?”
“Why not Alex’s wife? Deborah finds out hubby is cheating on her and gets royally pissed off.”
“She has an alibi.”
“A real alibi?”
“She was in New York City around the time we believe the murder occurred.”
“Maybe she enlists the help of a third party, and then she deals with the body dump after she returns to Maine.”
“Sounds like a stretch,” Byron said.
“Okay, what about Lina? You said she told you that she’d do anything to make sure her grandbabies stay around.”
“Maybe she didn’t take part in the disposal,” Ferguson opined. “Perhaps she waited until Alex left the house and went in to confront the family’s interloper. Warn her off from the son.”
“And the hammer claw through the skull?”
“Maybe she hadn’t planned on killing her. Maybe they have words and Lina snaps. She grabs the nearest thing she can find and buries it in the back of Dani’s skull. You said they were planning to remodel the house. A hammer could have been left lying around.”
“And the aftermath?” Byron asked. “Now Lina’s got a dead girl bleeding out on her kitchen floor.”
“Didn’t you say that she got this big scary groundskeeper guy who lives on the Scarborough estate? Kind of protective of her, I believe you said.”
“Lina’s brother-in-law. Her deceased husband’s brother, Dennis Stavros.”
“Why wouldn’t she reach out for his help?” Ferguson asked.
“Why don’t you throw in the butler or the au pair, while you’re at it?”
“They have a butler?”
Byron sighed, realizing there was still so much to do.
“More coffee, hon?” the waitress asked, materializing beside Byron.
“Please,” he said.
After topping off Ferguson’s cup again, too, the waitress departed, leaving the two men in silent contemplation.
“What about the blood and the semen?” Byron asked after a time.
“If both come back a match to our victim and suspect then we’ll be a lot closer to tying a bow on this thing.”
Byron considered Ferguson’s line of reasoning. “If we weren’t dealing with Hollywood elite would you be treading so carefully?”
“Honestly?” Ferguson said. “No, I probably wouldn’t. But we are dealing with Hollywood elite. This family has a lot of money and a lot of clout.”
Byron slouched back on the bench. He was physically and emotionally spent.
“Look, John, I agree with you that Alex is a part of this, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he had anything to do with her death. I’m just trying to save us both a lot of aggravation later by playing devil’s advocate now.”
Within Plain Sight Page 24