by C. M. Sutter
“What can we do to help?” Kip asked.
“Anything of value from the statements?”
“Not really. Sounds like the best tip was from the woman who told you about that VW Tiguan. Everything else is repetitive—two gunshots and no car seen speeding away. It also sounds like some people thought the sounds were either fireworks or an exhaust backfiring.”
I yawned. “Okay, I’ll call Lutz. He can decide how we’ll divvy up the process.” I made the call, and five minutes later, our boss entered the bullpen.
“What have we got right now, Jesse?”
“A three-hour video of the restaurant’s parking lot to review and plenty of people to interview. Frank and I stopped at the crime scene earlier, and there’s nothing there worth spending time on. There’s an empty building directly in front of the spot where the shots were fired, meaning no video that captured the actual shooting. I didn’t see any cameras on that block at all.”
Lutz sighed. “Then let’s start on the people that Charlotte was with last night. Who made the reservation?”
Frank answered. “A Lynette Gibson.”
“Good, get her in here and find out how the evening went. I want the names of everyone who had dinner with Charlotte last night. Get them all here and interview each one. We don’t have time to be chasing them down while there’s a killer at large.” Lutz looked at each of us. “Jesse, you work on that video, and the rest of you talk to those people.”
I nodded. “You got it.” Lutz walked out, and I turned to Frank. “Call Lynette and get the ball rolling.”
Chapter 9
I had been watching the video for only twenty minutes when I saw Charlotte’s vehicle pull in and park. Luckily, her car, the ivory-colored Maxima, was easy to spot in the otherwise dimly lit lot. She took a spot in the third row and to the far right of the restaurant’s entrance. I watched as her car’s interior light illuminated for a few seconds then went out when she exited the car and closed the door. The headlights were on a delay and lit the area for a good thirty seconds. I saw Charlotte turn around and stop. Somebody approached her, then they walked in together.
Must be one of her coworkers.
It saddened me to see her alive and well with the knowledge I now had that several hours later, she would be dead. If only we’d had crystal balls.
“See anything?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, Charlotte just arrived.” I checked the time in the lower corner of the video—8:47. I jotted it down.
“That had to be tough.”
I gave him a nod. “What’s up with Lynette Gibson?”
“She’s on her way. Of course she wanted to know why we need to speak to her, but I said she’d find out soon enough.” Frank glanced at the wall clock. “She said she’d be here at noon.”
I followed Frank’s eyes. “So we’ve got ten minutes. I think I’ll join you for the interview. Henry, you can take over watching this video for the time being. Try to gather every license plate and description of the cars already there as well as the new ones that arrive. This interview shouldn’t take too long, and then you guys can follow up with the other people who had dinner with Charlotte as soon as we get their names.”
“Roger that.” Henry walked over and took my place at my desk.
“Where is Phil taking her?”
“He’s going to call me when she arrives. I told him to take her to the conference room on the first floor.”
“Good enough. Let’s head down and get our questions on paper.” I grabbed a legal pad and pen and walked with Frank to the first floor of our station. The conference room at the end of the main hallway was used primarily for private conversations with people who walked in off the street and needed to speak with an officer, or for conducting our own interviews with people we wanted information from.
Frank’s phone buzzed a few minutes later. He said it was Phil Chase, our weekend daytime desk sergeant. Frank picked up and had a ten-second conversation with him. “Go ahead and bring her to the conference room. We’re already there.”
Within seconds, we heard the sound of footsteps approaching. A knock on the door was next, and Frank called out to come in. Phil made the introductions and left.
Frank pulled out a chair and tipped his chin at it. “Have a seat, Lynette.”
She did. Her face gave away her nervousness. “Why am I here? Did somebody accuse me of something?”
“Not at all. Would you like a bottle of water before we get started?”
“No, thanks. Started on what?”
I had my paper and pen ready. Frank would conduct the interview since he was the one who had contacted Lynette to begin with.
“Lynette, we need to know about your dinner at Cherry’s last night, but go back to the initial decision to go there, why, and who attended.”
She stared at us as if we were crazy. “What?”
“Humor us.” Frank gave her the nod to go ahead.
“Um, okay. Our work staff usually has dinner together once a month. We take turns picking out the restaurant, but we have guidelines to go by.”
Frank frowned. “Which are?”
“Nothing over four-star—too pricey—and nothing beyond ten miles of the dentist office.”
“Sure, and last night was your turn since you made the reservations?”
“How do you know that, and why on earth does it matter?”
“Please go on.”
“There’s nothing extraordinary to say. I picked Cherry’s, made the reservation a few days ago, and nine o’clock was all they had.”
“The reservations sheet showed six people. Who attended? We need first and last names.”
Her eyes bulged. “Is it legal to stalk people?”
Frank huffed. “We’re the police, remember? And we aren’t stalking, we’re investigating.”
“Whatever. There was me, Lynette Gibson—as you already know, Charlotte Sanders, Bob Vellore, Brandy Felix, Leon Jones, and Trisha Santos. That’s the entire staff except for Dr. Carter, and he doesn’t fraternize with us. He says he needs to keep our relationships purely professional.”
Frank glanced at me. “So there’s never been any hanky-panky at work?”
“Not with the doctor if that’s what you mean.”
“Then who?”
“Bob and Trisha have a thing, but they keep it pretty low-key. Dr. Carter doesn’t know about it, but they’re both single, so what’s the harm?”
I added that to my notes and tapped one of the questions Frank hadn’t touched on yet. He looked at the sheet.
“What about disagreements between colleagues? Has there been bad blood between any of you?”
“Of course not! We wouldn’t spend time together after work if we hated each other. We all get along great.”
“Even with Charlotte?”
“Charlotte? She does get preferential treatment at times, but it’s only because she’s the senior dental hygienist and has been there the longest.”
“Does that piss anyone off?”
Lynette shrugged. “I suppose so, but it’s just work stuff. Nothing anyone loses sleep over.”
“Who would get upset with her?”
Lynette stared at her lap. “I do sometimes, and so does Trisha, but it’s only because we need the overtime more than she does. I mean, jeez, she’s almost ready to retire. Let us younger people who have families make some extra money. But in all honesty, it’s Dr. Carter who gives her all the overtime. She could refuse it and suggest he give it to us, but she doesn’t. Why bring up Charlotte?”
“Do you know anyone with a red Tiguan, Lynette?”
“A what?”
“It’s a Volkswagen SUV,” Frank said.
“No, I don’t even know what one looks like.”
“Does anyone you work with have a red vehicle?”
“Sure, Bob does, but it’s a pickup truck.”
I tapped my pen against the sheet of questions and checked off each one. Frank had asked everything we needed
to know.
“One more thing before you leave,” I said. “Did anyone seem angry last night, especially with Charlotte?”
“Nobody appeared to be, and we had a great time, just like we always do. Are you going to tell me why most of your questions are about Charlotte?”
Frank sighed. “Unfortunately, Charlotte Sanders was murdered last night.”
Chapter 10
We escorted the stunned Lynette to the parking lot after she composed herself. We asked that she not tell the news about Charlotte to anyone just yet since the rest of her workmates needed to be interviewed too.
Back in the bullpen, we passed out the other names and had the detectives start making calls. Henry paused the footage and said he was able to get the plate numbers for twelve vehicles. He hadn’t seen anything that raised a red flag. I gave Henry the phone number for Trisha Santos and mentioned that she had taken issue with Charlotte getting more overtime than she did, but I highly doubted that an overtime problem would be a reason for anyone to kill another human being.
I went back to watching the footage, and the guys set up times for the other employees to come in. I would make a personal appearance at the dentist’s home later to give him the unfortunate news about Charlotte.
Seconds after I settled into watching the parking lot footage again, my desk phone rang. Pausing the footage, I answered. Lutz was calling to say Don was ready for Steve to come in and make an official identification of his mother. I dreaded hearing those words and had a request I needed to make of Don personally before Steve arrived. After I hung up, I pushed back from my desk and headed downstairs to the medical examiner’s office.
With a short knock, I poked my head around the door and saw Don at his desk. “Got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s up?” Don minimized the screen on his computer and gave me his full attention.
“I have a request.”
“Name it.”
“Lutz said Steve is on his way here to officially identify Charlotte.”
“Yep, he should be here in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Can I take a look at her first? I don’t want him to see anything that will leave a bad impression in his mind.”
Don gave me an understanding nod. “You bet, and I appreciate your candor.”
I walked with Don to the viewing area and waited while he rounded the corner, went through the door, and pressed the button to raise the blinds. Charlotte’s sheet-draped body lay on a roller table several feet away. Filled with sadness, I stared at the innocent woman who happened to be the mother of one of my dearest friends, then I nodded, and Don returned to my side of the glass.
When he entered, I pointed at Charlotte. “We have to turn the table around. The shot wasn’t a through and through, so there isn’t an exit wound, correct?”
“That’s correct, and you don’t want Steve to see this side of his mom’s head. I completely understand.” Don went into the autopsy room and turned the table so Charlotte’s good side faced me. He looked through the glass, and I gave him a head tip, then he lowered the blinds and reentered the viewing room.
“Thanks, Don. There’s going to be plenty of emotions already, and I don’t want to add even more. I’ll stick around and wait in here for Steve to arrive since he’s going to need my moral support.”
Don gave me the okay, I took a seat on the couch, and he closed the door at his back.
Several minutes later, I heard voices coming from Don’s office. Steve had arrived. Other than having to identify my own parents and sister when they died, this moment would be the toughest for me so far. The door opened, and I looked to my right. Steve was already an emotional wreck, and tears streamed down his cheeks. The crying got worse when he saw me. I nodded at Don, and he left us alone.
“Have a seat, buddy,” I said. “We’re going to do this in your own time. There’s no rush.”
Steve cried openly and clutched my arm. “Jesse, my mom meant the world to me. She was the only close relative I had.”
I knew too well how he felt, and my heart ached for his loss. We sat in silence for a good ten minutes while Steve tried to collect himself. Finally, when he gave me the okay, I pressed the button on our side of the room to alert Don that we were ready. We stood together at the window, and with my arm around Steve’s shoulder for support, the blinds were raised.
Chapter 11
By the time I returned to the bullpen, it was twelve thirty. I hated leaving Steve in the condition he was in and had made a few calls to some of my other college buddies, asking them to look in on him. Curt, in Wicker Park, lived the closest to Steve. Without staying on the line too long, I explained the tragic shooting and said Steve needed all the moral support he could get. He was a mess. Curt took it upon himself to take the reins, which I appreciated. He promised to contact our other friends, and I got back to work.
I rubbed my aching temples and returned to watching the video while Henry and Shawn interviewed more of Charlotte’s coworkers downstairs.
“How much time is left on that footage?” Frank asked.
I looked at the bottom right of the screen. “It says I’m at the ten o’clock mark, so I’m not even halfway.”
Frank rose from his desk. “Give me that sheet with the plate numbers. I’ll start checking them in the DMV database.”
“Thanks, buddy.” I propped my cheek on my fist and continued to stare at the screen. “Shit!” I bolted upright and backed up the footage.
Frank leapt from his chair. “What did you see?”
“I’m damn near positive a Tiguan just passed in front of the camera.”
Frank grabbed my guest chair and set it next to me. “Run it again.”
I forwarded the footage and was ready to hit the pause button as soon as the headlights appeared.
“Hang on a second,” Frank said. “Okay, now.”
The vehicle’s image was centered on the screen, and the light from the restaurant’s marquee illuminated the rear bumper. “It’s a Tiguan, right? And it’s red.”
Frank grabbed his laptop from his desk and returned to my guest chair. “Let’s see how the front and rear lights look at night.” He pulled up an image of a Tiguan at night. The lights were identical. “We need the plate number.”
I zoomed in as far as my computer would go, and the only thing I could get off the plate was the first two letters—ZA. Nothing more showed up, but we were able to see that it was an Illinois plate.
“That should be enough to get a hit on the DMV database.” Frank’s fingers were a blur as he tapped computer keys. He entered the type of vehicle, the color, and the state. Then he entered ZA where it asked for a plate number. We held our breath while the database did what it could with the information we fed it. The results showed zero.
I slapped my desk. “Son of a bitch. How is that possible? Call Todd and tell him I’m emailing this video to him.” I looked at the time on the screen—10:07. “Tell him to pause it at the ten o’clock mark and that we’re on our way down.”
I updated Lutz as we took the stairs two by two down to our lower level, where the tech department was located. If anyone could sharpen that image and get a better read on the plate number, Todd could.
He had the video paused at the ten o’clock location by the time we walked in.
“So what do you need from me?” he asked.
I explained that a red Tiguan had been identified at the crime scene by a witness, and now I’d just seen one at the restaurant where Charlotte had eaten before she was killed. “It passed the camera at ten oh seven.”
“Okay, let’s see what we can do with it.” Todd inched the footage forward until the SUV was centered in front of us.
“There it is,” I said, “but we could only identify the first two letters, yet when we entered them into the database, nothing came up.”
Todd tweaked the sharpness and pulled the image in closer. He lightened the plate and set the contrast to give us the best read on the plate number. “Wha
t did you think you had?”
Frank spoke up. “It looked like ZA to us.”
“It’s actually the letters ZR followed by an eight.” Todd jerked his head at Billy. “Enter that into the system and see what pops.”
We stood at Billy’s back and watched as he typed that information into the DMV’s database. He had the results in seconds.
I raked my hair as I stared at the screen. “Who the hell is Karen Black?”
Everyone shrugged even though my question was rhetorical.
The woman the Tiguan was registered to, lived in the area considered North Center—Roscoe Village to be exact. She was a fifty-year-old married woman, and why she happened to be at Cherry’s Chop Shop, a forty-minute drive from her home, was questionable to say the least. Although Cherry’s sounded like a great restaurant, it wasn’t anything like the restaurants along Rush Street, which was half the distance from Roscoe Village.
“Frank, call Tony and have him check the reservations sheet that’s lying on my desk. We need to know if Karen Black had reservations at Cherry’s last night.”
It took only a minute for Tony to confirm that he didn’t see her name anywhere on the reservations sheet.
“Check to see if she has a criminal record.”
Billy pulled that up as well, and she was squeaky clean—no arrests for anything. Karen Black needed an interview, and it had to be done that day.
“One more thing, Billy. Can you print out her DMV information and her driver’s license for me?”
“Sure, it’ll only take a second.”
With those sheets in hand, I made a detour to the conference room on the first floor while Frank went to explain our intentions to Lutz. I knocked on the door, and Henry stepped out.
“How’s it going in there?”
“We’re interviewing Bob Vellore right now. So far, from what we’ve been told, everyone liked Charlotte well enough and seemed truly shocked by her death. I really don’t think her murder was work-related.”
I shook my head. “I don’t either, but everyone is a suspect until they aren’t.”