by Chris Culver
Peterson nodded as we entered the surveillance room. “I left the city so I wouldn’t deal with this kind of shit.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, my friend,” I said, nodding toward the four video monitors on the wall. “If you don’t mind, spool up the video of the Sigma Iota house from nine this evening until now.”
He pulled out a chair from beneath the table near the monitors. I did likewise and sat beside him. We spent an hour watching the film at high speed. From nine to ten, two dozen people entered and left the fraternity. Chad Hamilton came in with a group of men at 9:43 PM. From ten to eleven, the number of people coming in slackened. From eleven to midnight, two young men came in, and both swayed and stumbled as if they were drunk. June didn’t make it onto surveillance once, and Chad didn’t leave.
Peterson looked at me. “You sure your victim came in during this time frame?”
“She said she came in at about eleven,” I said.
“We can rewind,” he said. “She could have gotten the times confused.”
“I think we’ve looked at enough film,” I said. “I’ll go talk to her. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.”
He nodded, and I left the small office. Back at the Sigma Iota house, the crowds had thinned, as had the police presence. Now, only three police cars and a hearse remained. Sam, Dr. Sheridan’s assistant, nodded as I walked to the crime scene.
“Is this your case, Detective?” he asked.
“No, George Delgado’s working it,” I said. “I’m just assisting. Is Delgado still around?”
“He left about fifteen minutes ago with your suspect.”
Delgado was moving things along. Not that I blamed him. June confessed, and we had more than enough corroborating evidence to send her to death row. I thanked Sam and then headed for my truck. It didn’t take long to reach the station. Jason gave me a halfhearted smile from the front desk as I walked inside.
“Morning, Joe,” he said. “Sorry again for waking you up.”
“No problem,” I said, hurrying past him toward the bullpen. “Where’s Delgado?”
“With Shaun Deveraux in Harry’s office.”
I nodded and jogged toward the stairwell. The second floor didn’t have many working lights, so I had to go along by feel until I saw light spilling out from beneath Harry’s door. I knocked before opening the door.
“Detective Delgado, Mr. Deveraux,” I said, nodding to both men. Delgado nodded and waved me in.
“We were just talking about what to charge Ms. Wellman with,” said Delgado.
“Her rape accusation will make things hard,” said Deveraux. “You said you got her confession on tape?”
“Yeah,” I said, reaching for my purse. I hesitated before turning on my recording. “There’s one problem. She’s lying.”
Delgado rolled his eyes and sighed. “How did I know this would happen?”
Deveraux held up a hand to keep him from speaking.
“What’d she lie about?”
“Getting into the house,” I said. “I looked at the security footage. She said she snuck in at about eleven, but she didn’t show up on any of the college’s surveillance footage.”
“Isn’t it possible she avoided the cameras?” asked Delgado.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “They’re well positioned. Even if she slipped in through an open window, the cameras would have caught her walking toward the building.”
“Officers found her with the gun in her hand,” said Deveraux. “Could she have come in earlier?”
“Possibly,” I said. “I’d like to ask her.”
“You think she’s lying and covering for somebody else?” asked Deveraux, crossing his arms.
“I doubt it, but who knows?” I said. “Let me talk to her.”
Deveraux looked to Delgado. “It’s your case. What do you want to do, George?”
He planted his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at me.
“You backdoor me, I won’t forget.”
“I pulled a confession out of a murder suspect who wouldn’t even talk to you,” I said, speaking slowly so he wouldn’t misunderstand me. “I made this case for you. You don’t like me—I get it—but that’s your problem, not mine. I’m just trying to do my job. Are you going to let me, or are you going to stand in my way because you’re threatened by me?”
Delgado sighed and then crossed his arms. “Fine. Talk to her. I’ll be watching on video.”
“Thank you,” I said. I left before either man responded. Our interrogation booths were on the first floor. At one time, they had been storage closets, but we had enlarged and secured them. Now, they had sophisticated surveillance equipment hidden in the walls and locks that could have caged an enraged gorilla. They worked well for our purposes.
When I got downstairs, I found June Wellman sitting on a bench in the bullpen. Someone had cuffed her hands in front of her and shackled her feet to a ring embedded in the floor. I unhooked her and led her to a booth. There, I turned on my cell phone’s recording app and sat across from her at a metal table bolted to the floor.
“Thank you for talking earlier. I’m here to follow-up on that conversation. Same rules apply here that did there. You don’t have to answer my questions, but if you do, we can use what you say against you in court. You can also have a lawyer here. Do you want one?”
She swallowed and shook her head.
“I fucked up, didn’t I?” she asked.
“You sure did,” I said. “You can’t make that right, but you can help yourself by answering my questions. Given everything that happened to you, the more honest you are, the better. They won’t drop the charges against you, but a judge might be more lenient at sentencing. Your lawyer will explain your options, so make sure you get a good one.”
She nodded and looked at her hands. “Thanks.”
“That’s assuming you haven’t been lying,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “If you’ve been lying, they’ll put a needle in your arm.”
Her eyes shot to mine.
“Why would I lie about this? Chad raped me, and then I shot him so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. It was awful.”
“When did you sneak into his house?”
“Like I told you,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “It was a little before eleven. I remember because my roommate wanted our room at eleven so she could hook up with her boyfriend.”
“I pulled the surveillance video from the fraternity house from nine to almost two in the morning. You didn’t go in at eleven.”
She shook her head. “I’m not lying.”
“What door did you go through?”
She said nothing for a few seconds, so I repeated the question.
“I didn’t use a door,” she said. “I went through the tunnel.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a secret entrance. The brothers use it as part of their initiation. Chad told me about it so I could sneak in during special events when girls weren’t supposed to be in the house. I didn’t think they’d let me through the main door.”
I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head to the side. “And where is this secret entrance?”
“The rear parking lot. There’s a drainage system that runs beneath the whole campus. The house has a storm drain in the basement big enough for people to climb up. The brothers use it to smuggle in kegs for parties.”
This was interesting for more reasons than she realized. I stood up.
“I’ll check this tunnel out. Thank you. Remember what I said: get a lawyer,” I said, hurrying toward the front desk. June said something as I jogged away, but I couldn’t hear her. Jason, the night dispatcher, was typing something as I reached the desk, but he stopped when he saw I needed to talk to him. “Tell Shaun Deveraux and Detective Delgado that I’m going to the college to check something out. Ms. Wellman is in an interrogation booth. They should take her to a cell.”
Jason furrowed his brow, but he nodded anyway. “Will do, Detective. Good luck.”
I ran to my truck and checked the flashlight I kept in the glove box to make sure its batteries worked. It was time to go exploring.
37
The parking lot behind the Sigma Iota house was large enough to hold cars for every resident of both the fraternity and the dorm next door. I parked my old truck near the back and followed the asphalt’s slope to a ditch. In one direction, it led to a large basin that was still soggy with rain from the previous week. The other end led to a large, stone culvert that ran beneath the parking lot and straight toward the Sigma Iota fraternity.
I turned on my flashlight. It was six in the morning, and the sun peeked over the horizon. No one watched me, so I crept forward. The culvert was about five feet tall from floor to base, so I didn’t need to crouch far. Moss, gravel, and grit covered the floor inside. The air was fetid and thick. I tightened the beam on my light, but even then, I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel.
I walked for a hundred yards before finding a small shoot to the right, which ended about twenty feet from the main branch. Those enterprising Sigma Iota brothers had left an aluminum stepladder to allow unseen access to their home. I climbed up and pushed a heavy metal grate out of the way but stayed inside the lip of the pipe so I could flash my light around the room.
The tunnel ended in an expansive laundry room with concrete walls, exposed pipes near the ceiling, and eight washers and dryers. Heaps of clothes covered every table, chair, and flat surface in the room, while empty laundry detergent containers decorated two of the room’s corners. The room smelled like gym socks and mold. I pulled myself up the rest of the way and pushed the grate back over the hole.
Though I hadn’t searched this part of the house, I found the stairwell to the first floor quickly. Dr. Sheridan, his assistant Sam, and Officer Tracy Carruthers were in the lobby. Sam saw me first and nodded hello. That caused Tracy and Dr. Sheridan to turn around.
“Detective,” said Tracy, stepping forward with her brow furrowed. “I didn’t realize you were in the building.”
“I wasn’t until a moment ago,” I said. “There’s a tunnel in the basement that leads to the parking lot. I’m guessing none of the brothers mentioned that when you interviewed them.”
“Sure didn’t,” said Tracy.
“I’m tired of people holding back on me,” I said. I focused on Tracy. “You guys need anything?”
She shook her head. “We’ll be here for a while longer, but we’re good.”
“Great,” I said, already hurrying past them to leave the building. Classes wouldn’t start for another couple of hours, but already there were young men and women about jogging or talking and walking. I drove back to my station, where the morning exodus had begun as the evening shift left and the day shift arrived. Half a dozen uniformed officers nodded hello before returning to their conversations in the lobby as I stepped inside.
I walked to the front desk. Jason was behind it, but he was yawning as he logged out of the computer.
“Trisha around?”
He glanced up at me. “She’s in the locker room. Something I can help you with?”
I considered and shook my head. “It’s a woman thing.”
He nodded as if he understood. “Whatever it is, good luck.”
I nodded and smiled before turning toward the rest of the lobby. Even with Harry on vacation, there’d be a roll call meeting in the bullpen in about ten minutes to go over the day’s assignments and to go over the previous night’s events. I didn’t want to deal with Delgado, so I planned to skip it.
Trisha sauntered up the stairs from the women’s locker room in the basement and smiled at me.
“Hey, Joe,” she said. “I’m going to get coffee. You want something?”
“No, but I need to talk to you,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, a concerned look on her face. She looked to Jason, who was still manning the dispatcher’s station. “Anything I should know about this morning?”
“Line four was fuzzy last night,” he said, slipping around the counter. “If it gets bad, we need to call somebody.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said. “Have a good one, Jason.”
“You, too,” he said. He left, and I looked to Trisha.
“I need advice about a baby.”
She opened her eyes wide and leaned forward on the counter.
“Tell me everything.”
“It’s for a case,” I said. The eager smile on her face slipped away, and she reached for her rolling office chair to sit down.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re not pregnant. That’s okay, too. What’s going on?”
“I’m working the Laura Rojas case, but I’m running into walls everywhere I turn. Laura didn’t talk to people. When she died, she was pregnant. So far, I’ve talked to her mom, her neighbors, her co-worker, and a few friends. Nobody knew she was pregnant.”
Trisha looked thoughtful before nodding.
“This was her first pregnancy?”
“I think so,” I said. “Her mom claimed she was a virgin and would remain so until her wedding night.”
Trisha laughed and smiled as she drew in a breath.
“My mom assumed the same thing when I was young.”
“I’ve never been pregnant, but it’s supposed to be exciting. She would have told someone, wouldn’t she?”
Trisha curled her lip into a thoughtful frown before shaking her head.
“When I was pregnant with Morgan, I didn’t tell my friends until I was twelve weeks along. After the first trimester, the chance of a miscarriage drops. You don’t want to tell people you’re pregnant and then tell them two weeks later that you’re not. A miscarriage is hard enough as is.”
“You wouldn’t even tell your mom?”
Trisha’s lips curled upwards into a faint smile. “My mom and I didn’t get along well. If she had found out I was pregnant before Graham and I were married, she would have dragged me to church and waterboarded me in the baptismal font until I repented for my sinful ways. Once I had a ring on my finger, she was fine with it, but before then, she might have cut Graham’s balls off.”
I sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You’re not prying. And it’s fine. Mom and I made up before she died. She always wanted what was best for me, even if I didn’t agree with it.”
I rubbed my eyes and nodded before sighing.
“I’m getting frustrated with my case. Laura found something at Reid Chemical, but she didn’t tell anybody. She didn’t even tell anybody she was pregnant. It’s hard to investigate somebody who doesn’t talk to anybody.”
Trisha smiled and looked down to her computer.
“Does that remind you of anyone?”
I leaned against the counter. “I’m not dead, so it’s not a problem.”
“Does she have any sisters?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she’s got a younger sister named Alma. She’s a nurse in St. Louis.”
Trisha raised an eyebrow. “Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet,” I said. “If she didn’t tell her mom she was pregnant, she wouldn’t tell her sister.”
Trisha laughed and looked at me. “You have a different relationship with your mom than most people. Doesn’t your sister talk to you about the men in her life?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s Audrey. She thinks I’m celibate and live through her.”
“That’s not why she tells you those things,” said Trisha, shaking her head. “She wants you involved in her life. That’s what sisters do. They talk. If Laura needed to talk to someone, she would have gone to her sister.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” said Trisha. “Trust me.”
I rapped my fingers on the desk before nodding. “Okay. I guess I’m going to St. Louis.”
Trisha reached beneath the counter for a clipboard. “You’ll want a car.”
I thanked her and signed out a marked SUV before heading out. Laura Rojas had a sister, Alma Diaz, and
according to the license bureau, she lived in St. Louis’s Central West End. It was a vibrant, hip part of town with great bars and restaurants and some very expensive historic homes and condos. If Alma could afford to live there, she did well for herself.
The drive was easy until I reached the city. Once I got off the interstate, I used my GPS to guide me to Alma’s house. She lived on an elegant street in a three-story brick home with a portico on the front. Despite the city address, her street was quiet and had little through traffic. I parked out front and walked up a brick path to her front door.
A small Hispanic woman answered my knock. She had a young child with curly black hair on her hip, and she gave me a strained smile.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I’m Detective Joe Court. Are you Alma Diaz?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you Laura Rojas’s sister?”
She drew in a deep, slow breath. “I am, but I have nothing to say. I’ve talked to the police enough.”
“Who have you talked to?”
“Ugly man with black hair.”
I nodded. “Mathias Blatch. He’s from the St. Louis County Police.”
“He said my sister was a drug dealer and that she had over a pound of marijuana in her house. If that’s what you’re here to talk about, then you can contact my attorney. My sister didn’t need to sell drugs. She worked for a living.”
I scratched the back of my neck. “To be fair, we found drugs in her house, but they weren’t hers. Someone set her up.”
Alma’s expression softened, and she nodded.
“What do you want?”
“Just to talk.”
“About?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I shifted from one foot to the other and looked down to the brick pavers upon which I stood so I wouldn’t have to look her in the face.
“Did you know your sister was pregnant?”
When I looked up, she nodded.
“Do you know who the father is?”
She blinked before nodding again. “A friend from law school. He’s an attorney in New York now. He doesn’t know.”
“So Laura confided in you?” I asked.