Desperate Measures

by M. Glenn Graves

  “What on earth are you doing here?” the louder-than-necessary voice awakened me.

  The clock on the wall informed me that it was after ten. I figured it was morning. The light from the tall windows gave it away.

  “You passed out last night,” I said.

  “Where?” the Duchess said.

  “Over there,” I pointed to the bar.

  “Were we drinking together?” she said as if aghast that such a thing was possible.

  “You were drinking. I was watching.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “We were talking about your daughter, Melody. I had some questions.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “Not much.”

  “You need to leave.”

  “Well, thanks for the night’s rest. Your sofa is soft. Good sleeping.”

  “Who invited you to sleep in my house?”

  “Look, Duchess,” I said after she had pushed enough of my buttons to arouse my ire. “I came here to get some information, nothing more. You drank enough vodka to sink a battleship full of sailors. You passed out. I carried you to your room, put you to bed, and then slept here for about six hours. I wanted to be sure you were okay. Now that your attitude has returned, I can see that you are your old self and good to go. So, that being said, I am on my way. Thanks for the bed and bathroom facilities.”

  I headed towards the front door down the long hallway from the den. In most places, it would have been more dramatic because of the normal distance from fitting words spoken to one’s exit. The distance here allowed too much of an interval. The timing was tacky. Not the usual bang, bang. More like bang, slosh, wait, walk, slosh, slosh. Bad timing.

  “Wait a minute,” the Duchess called out as I was trying to escape her ambience.

  “You have some other sly remark to make?”

  “No, just an apology. Please come back. I owe you ….”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I said.

  “Did I answer your questions about Melody?”

  “A little. But you were heading towards inebriation faster than I could ask and get answers.”

  She smiled. “One has to be good at some things. Besides, I had already had an early start to that self-inebriation of which you speak. I think I was high before you arrived. A nightly ritual, I confess.”

  “Drinking an acquired talent?” I said.

  “Necessary survival skill in my world.”

  “Drink to forget or to endure?”

  “A little of both,” she said. “What do you want to know about Melody?”

  As it turned out, the Duchess had no kitchen skills so I fixed breakfast for both of us. At least she had the right ingredients for whipping up our late morning fare.

  Food and a little more than a pot of strong coffee helped to sustain her while she talked with me for a couple of hours.

  I was heading back to Boston with at least the knowledge that Melody had never played with matches or fire as a child. In fact, the Duchess told me of a time when a small fire broke out in the room where Melody was playing and it scared her so badly that she had to see a therapist for several weeks. According to the Duchess, fire would be the last method of self-criticism Melody would use to extinguish her life.

  So much for fire being a likely choice for her suicide.

  The other tidbit discovered during our late morning breakfast was that Melody had great disdain for handguns. According to the Duchess, Melody had never fired a gun in her life.

  I called Rogers to assess my investigation. Nothing like dialoging with a purely logical, almost completely objective, artificially intelligent computer who possess an attitude of superiority. The attitude is not without merit, but I suspect that is only because I am the owner and not someone who graduated from Harvard or Yale or one of those other Ivy League schools. Hold that thought. I graduated from Boston University. Still.

  “What’s your evidence?” Rogers said.

  “My gut.”

  “That does not compute too well with my rational thinking.”

  “I know.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “I can’t. It’s an intuitive feeling, a notion, a belief. A hunch.”

  “Too subjective,” she said.

  “Yeah, that too. It’s all I’ve got.”

  “It will not stand up in a court of law.”

  “I’m not trying the case. I’m following leads.”

  “Where has that got you – some weird church led by sexually promiscuous priests, a wealthy mother who pampers herself due to her highly sophisticated and egotistical notions of superiority, and a boyfriend on drugs obsessed with a recording showing the death of his girlfriend.”

  “You lay that out nicely. You missed the three friends – Sandy, Stacey, and Rebecca,” I said.

  “I acknowledged the Sandy person. One of the two priests of the weird church… remember?”

  “You forgot Raney Goforth.”

  “He’s on the fringe as far as I can tell.”

  “Except that he followed us, per the orders of the good Reverend Fletcher. At least I suspect as much. I need you to do a thorough check on Raney Goforth and see what comes up. He could move from the fringe to a more central position with the right rap sheet report.”

  “I’ll let you know. Anything else you need?”

  “I’m coming home for a while. I need some time to think.”

  “You can’t think in Boston?”

  “I need my coffee pot, Sam, and my all-knowing computer close to me.”

  “How sweet. You miss us,” Rogers said.

  “With varying degrees.”

  “I’ll assume that to be an affirmation of my point. Drive carefully.”

  26

  “I need your help,” I said to Wineski.

  Sam was asleep on the couch with his head resting on my right thigh. I was sipping the hot coffee while I waited for some curt remark to come back at me from the Captain, my former boss with the Norfolk Police Department. Sometimes I helped him and sometimes he helped me, but not without exchanging verbal jabs.

  “What are you into?” he said.

  “You hear about that suicide up in the Boston area where the victim set herself on fire and then shot herself in the head?”

  “Saw it on the wire. Talk about overkill. What you got to do with it?”

  “Father of the victim asked me to check into it.”

  “I thought there was a recording of the incident,” he said.

  “Was. Is. I have it. Been viewing it over and over and over, ad nauseum. Can’t view it at all without feeling something.”

  “Why you keep lookin’ at it?”

  “See if there is anything I missed during the previous viewings.”

  “And, where is that getting you?”

  “You’re so sweet to ask. I need you to have the lab check it out.”

  “Boston police didn’t do their homework?”

  “I figure they did, but I know you. I don’t know them.”

  “Be still my heart. Drop it off and I’ll have the guys look at it.”

  “Wish Starnes was back with you. Any word from her?”

  “Now and then, but nothing to indicate she’s coming home. At least not yet.”

  “Still acting Sheriff of McAdams County in Carolina?”

  “Assistant to the Sheriff now, I think. The elected guy returned but decided to keep her around. Created a new title and function.”

  “Shows some intelligence on the part of the returned sheriff,” I said.

  “Knows a good horse to bet on,” Wineski said.

  “She okay with that?”

  “She stayed, didn’t she?”

  “Must be something afoot,” I said.

  “Yeah. Criminals.”

  Sam and I rode over to the police station and dropped off the DVD after I had Rogers make a copy of it. She stored the copy in her data base just to protect my integrity. I promised Lenny that I would take care of it. I
’d hate for the Norfolk Lab to mess it up.

  The other benefit of making a copy was that Rogers would have the tape to view.

  When Sam and I returned from our brief road trip, Rogers was viewing the DVD.

  “Not a pleasant movie,” she said.

  “Probably doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers me,” I said.

  “No, it does not. Perhaps that is because I did not know the young woman.”

  “Perhaps, but I think there is more to your platonic or stoic objectivity than the mere acquaintance with a person.”

  “Perhaps. Still, if the person on the tape had been you,” she said, “then I might have some feeling about its content.”

  “Interesting concession. You find anything on Laney Goforth?” I said.

  “Good student at Regis. Salutatorian of his high school class. No rap sheet. Seems to be what you call a ladies’ man. Nothing really interesting.”

  “Where did you find that ladies’ man stuff?”

  “Newspaper articles, society section. Campus gossip. Facebook entries. Blogs. Stuff like that.”

  “Man about town?”

  “Is that one of your cute expressions?’

  “English idiom. Means the guy is out and about publicly, seen with lots of people. Night life and all.”

  “I think that’s what I said, ladies’ man.”

  “Any names show up with him that I might find interesting?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I poured myself a cup of three hour old coffee while I waited for a name. It was still hot and almost decent.

  “You’re keeping me in suspense,” I said.

  “I know. It’s that pregnant pause.”

  “Let me have the name,” I said.

  “Melody Legrand.”

  “They were friends. That’s no real surprise. Probably dated a little.”

  “Oh, you wanted surprises.”

  “Yeah, something I didn’t know.”

  “Okay, I have two somethings. First, that little dating must have been something special.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “They were engaged to be married.”

  “Well, isn’t that special?” I said. “And the other something?”

  “Before he was engaged to Melody, I found numerous articles and photos and blogs of him with another female.”

  “Should I sit down for this one and do a drum-roll for you?”

  “Don’t be smart. And yes, you should sit down.”

  I sat down and swigged my coffee in the hopes that the caffeine would help wash down whatever information Rogers was about to lay on me.

  “So tell me already,” I said with some impatience.

  “Duchess Leigh Legrand.”

  “Oh joy,” I said and put down my coffee cup.

  “I knew you’d be giddy,” she said.

  27

  I was mulling over the revelations from Rogers when my cell phone played some gosh-awful tune that sounded like a cross between hip-hop and modern jazz. Nothing familiar crossed my mind, at least nothing I could recognize as music, so I answered the thing to stop the sounds.

  “You have anything for me?”

  “Maybe,” Wineski said.

  “Is that a definite maybe or a possible maybe?”

  “Get your butt over here if you want to see what the boys in the lab found. You might want to view it once or twice.”

  I looked at my watch. It was past five o’clock.

  “It’s past closing time for you and the guys there,” I said.

  “Diligence never sleeps.”

  “And you’re making someone stay around to talk with me and do a show and tell?”

  “Yeah, so get over here quick. I don’t like paying overtime,” Wineski said and clicked off the line.

  It was twenty minutes to six when Sam and I arrived at the police station. I found Wineski with one of the lab techs. They were viewing the DVD. Wineski stood up and pointed to the chair he had just vacated.

  “Sit here and watch what Zack discovered,” he said.

  I sat down and Zack played the DVD using his sophisticated equipment. The images on the screen were in slow motion. It was still gruesome. As soon as the image of the woman on the screen burst into flames, Zack paused the scene. It reminded me of the photo I had once seen as a child of a monk who had set himself on fire in the middle of a street. I think he was protesting the war in Vietnam.

  “There,” Zack said as he pointed to the left hand side of the monitor in the corner at the bottom.

  I moved closer to see what Zack had spotted.

  “It something on the camera lens,” I said.

  “Not on your life,” Zack said. “It’s not in the frame before this moment. And, it stays there for another two or three frames, then… it’s gone.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Looks like a hand to me,” Wineski said.

  “A hand,” I repeated with great skepticism.

  “Yes, it’s likely a hand,” Zack said. “See, when I enlarge the section of the image like this,” he turned a knob and zoomed in on the object under discussion, “you can clearly see two, maybe three fingers.”

  “Looks like a flaw on the recording,” I offered.

  “You’d doubt your own mother,” Wineski answered.

  “As a matter of fact, I often do.”

  “You don’t see a hand?” Zack said to me.

  “Run it at normal speed,” I said.

  Zack set it up and began the DVD. I tried hard to focus on the bottom corner of the screen instead of the main event happening at the center, the fiery explosion.

  In less than a second something appeared and disappeared from the screen, much like a hand offering some kind of gesture. Whatever it was, it was a movement on the recording.

  “Okay, it’s not a glitch on the film,” I said reluctantly. “You got anything else?”

  “Yeah, I got something else,” Zack said. “When I fast forward to about five minutes after the victim shot herself, I found this.”

  Zack keyed the DVD player in front of him. I was focused upon the burning glob of human remains in the center of the screen.

  “Look here,” Zack said as he pointed to the bottom left hand corner of the screen once again. “Now that’s the back of a person’s head.”

  Zack paused the image at the spot. I couldn’t argue with him this time. The back of someone’s head was clearly visible in the corner of the picture.

  “Same spot as the other thing you found,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Zack said.

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “What?” Zack said.

  “Ma’am,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and then looked sheepishly at me.

  “Can you enlarge that segment like you did the other one?” I said.

  “No problem,” Zack said as he pressed two keys on his laptop and turned a dial.

  The enhanced image showed the back of a head videoed by the elevated surveillance camera. At least it would seem to be the back of a person’s head. Once again, the image on the screen only lasted for a few seconds, then disappeared. The other noteworthy characteristic of this image was that the hair was parted in the middle.

  “So we have a hand and a head,” I said to Wineski with some degree of sarcasm.

  “More than you had before Zack here did his magic,” he said.

  “Not enough for identification,” I said.

  “Of course not. Whattaya want, a signed confession? Do your homework,” Wineski said as he moved towards the door of the lab.

  “That’s exactly what I want. Zack, can you make me a copy of the DVD but record it at the slower speed with the enhanced images you found?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “Ma’am?” I said.

  “Should I say sir?” Zack asked quite honestly.

  “You’ve been around Wineski too long. Just make me a copy in slow-mo with enlarged image
s, please. And Zack, thanks for your assistance on this. You’re good at this stuff.”

  “Thank you, ma’am … uh … sorry. I don’t know what to call you,” he said.

  “Clancy.”

  “You’re getting better at this,” Wineski said to me as he closed the door behind us as we entered the hallway. “You actually said please. Impressive.”

  I stared down the long hallway outside the lab. I was pondering my return trip to the Boston area. The signed confession might be a real possibility.

  “Maybe I’ll become a real Southern Belle in my old age.”

  I moved down the hallway. Wineski remained by the lab door.

  “Too tall,” he said after me.

  “Too tall for what?”

  “Most Southern Belles I’ve known are shorter than you. And not enough accent. And the wardrobe is too ….”

  “Okay, okay. I get the picture. Don’t you have stuff to do besides critiquing a former underling?” I said.

  “Clancy, you were many things during our time together here in Norfolk. I got me some words to describe our relationship. Underling is not one that readily comes to mind.”

  I walked away without comment, but I did smile to myself.

  28

  I was on I-81 and crossing into Pennsylvania while on the phone with Rogers. Sam was asleep in the front seat. That is, the largest part of him was on the floorboard of the passenger’s side of the front. His head was on the seat. His eyes were closed and he was snoring. It was a posture that made me cringe just thinking about waking up and trying to move after such a positioning of the body for any length of time. My body, not his. I suspected that he was a tad more malleable than I. Sam was lost in his dreams, no doubt, seemingly unworried about waking up anytime soon.

  “Why did you have to go back so soon?”

  “The new info from the DVD presses me on,” I said.

  “And your case is getting colder by the hour,” Rogers added.

  “Something like that. I forgot to tell you to do some checking on the modus of death.”

  “Melody’s suicide?”

  “Yeah. See what you can discover about the use of fire and handguns together, in tandem,” I said.

  “You mean like how many incidents of this nature have been documented in the history of criminal actions?”