by John L. Work
He didn’t listen to or watch any news programming during the entire weekend.
39
Chicago Police Department Homicide Detective Frank Stanley was interviewing an elderly eye witness from the Grayson O’Hare Airport Hotel. He was the front doorman, in his early seventies and a little hard of hearing, so the detective had to speak loudly in the small interview room.
“Then what happened?”
“Well, I was just standing at my usual place outside the front door. This lady had been sitting on the bench a few feet away, for about an hour and a half. I’d asked her if she needed me to call her a cab or anything and she said she was okay. She was just waiting for someone.”
“What’d she look like?”
“She was about five-five, medium build, wearing a nice long black dress and a button-up coat. She had black gloves on her hands. And she had on a hat – the kind with a little black net that comes down to cover part of your face. Sort of a – what’s that word? A veil. That’s what it was. A veil. She had on dark tinted glasses, too. Sort of looked like she was dressed for a funeral or maybe something really formal.”
“What color was she?”
“White.”
“Hair?”
“Blonde. Platinum blonde.”
“Ever see her before?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“This cab rolled up and a man got out. He paid his fare. She got up and walked over toward him. When he turned around she pointed something at him with her right hand. Her back was to me and I couldn’t see everything. There was a plane flying in overhead and it was so loud I couldn’t hear, but I saw a couple of flashes come from her right hand. The guy went down, and I saw another flash as she pointed right at his head. She bent over and reached inside his coat. She pulled something out. Then she picked up some things off the pavement and walked toward the parking lot. I had to turn away to get to my desk. I got on the phone and called my boss. He called our security office and they called you guys. By the time I hung up the phone with my boss, she was gone. I don’t know where she went. The security guys couldn’t find her. The cops got there in about ten minutes after it all happened.”
At first Stanley had no idea as to the identity of the dead man. There was no wallet or identification on him. No one at the desk who came out to the front of the building recalled him being a registered guest. But there was a Hilton electronic room key in his right coat pocket. From that the cops figured out who Jim McCowell was and where he was from.
Stanley called the Colorado Springs Police Department on Saturday morning and arranged for a uniformed officer and a police chaplain to go to McCowell’s home to notify his wife that her husband was dead. He asked the duty sergeant to make sure that whoever delivered the message was sure to write a report and have it faxed back to the Chicago Police, to the attention of Detective Frank Stanley. He wanted to know if the officer who got assigned to deliver the death message noticed an appropriate reaction from the widow.
Whoever shot this guy was a good marksman. From the description the doorman gave him, Stanley thought it was probably a high-priced hooker. He didn’t think it’d take him long to track this one down.
40
“She resigned last week.”
He looked at Janet Rogers incredulously. His mouth opened a little, but he was nearly speechless.
“What’d you say?”
“Sammie quit last Wednesday. She didn’t give a reason or tell anyone what she’s going to do. She just turned her letter in at the end of the shift and didn’t come in to work on Thursday. I found out when I got to work that morning. I tried calling her at home Thursday morning, but her number’s been disconnected. Her cell phone is shut off, too. What’s going on, J.D? I heard about Jim McCowell’s murder yesterday on the news.”
He noticed that she’d addressed him by his first name, a major departure from her usual polite formality.
“Can we talk at some length? I don’t mean to interrupt your work day. It’s going to take me more than a few minutes to explain everything to you. But first I need to tape another interview. And I’m going to need a complete accounting of everything that Sammie did while she was employed here – what information she had access to about customer accounts, any contacts she may have developed, everything you knew about her.”
“I’ll let the boss know I’m going to be tied up for a few hours. You want to talk here, or shall we get out of the building?”
“Why don’t we get out of here and go someplace where we won’t be interrupted.”
“Fine. There’s a little coffee shop a few blocks away. It’s got some nice little semi-private booths and I’m sure we won’t be bothered there. I’ll just tell Bill I’m going to be out of the office for awhile.”
41
Transcription: Interview with Janet Rogers
JW: Detective J.D. Welch, Roberts County Sheriff’s Office
JR: Janet Rogers
JW: This is Detective Welch with the Roberts County, Colorado Sheriff’s Office. The date is September 21, 2001, and the time is approximately ten o’clock a.m. I’m speaking with Janet Rogers in reference to the murder of Sheila McCowell. The interview is being conducted in Smith’s Coffee Shop on Speer Boulevard in Denver, Colorado. Janet, tell me once again your age and occupation.
JR: I’m forty-two years old and I’m a loan officer supervisor at the First Colonial American Bank in Denver.
JW: Tell me how long you’ve known Samantha Newsom.
JR: I sat on the bank personnel committee that interviewed and hired her as a receptionist last January. She was one of ten or twelve people who applied for the position. That’s the first time I met her.
JW: How long was she employed in that position?
JR: She got promoted into my department after two months. One of my officers quit to take a job with a stock broker and our president likes to promote from within, whenever he can. It keeps morale up and gives our people more incentive to do their best, if they know there’s a chance to advance within the company. She had a college degree and tested with a high score. She interviewed again with me and two vice-presidents and did well during her interviews. She wanted into the home loan department. The vice-president in charge of personnel made the final decision to promote her. She worked as a loan officer until last Wednesday when she resigned.
JW: How well did you know her?
JR: Next to Sheila, she became my best friend. We went to lunch together. We started doing workouts a couple of months ago at Condition Plus. We talked on the phone a lot. She was a close friend.
JW: In her capacity as a loan officer, what information did she have access to in the computerized bank records?
JR: Basically everything that’s in the system. She could get any information she wanted – account balances, credit reports, loan applications – everything.
JW: Was Samantha acquainted with Sheila McCowell?
JR: Yes. Sheila came in occasionally to go to lunch with me when Sammie was working as the receptionist. Sometimes they talked while I was tied up on phone calls before I could break away. A few times she went to lunch with us. We all got along well together. Usually we went on Fridays at noon.
JW: Were you aware of any contact that Sheila and Sammie might have had outside working hours?
JR: No. If they spent any time with each other outside our lunches, I didn’t know about it.
JW: Did Sheila continue to keep a bank account here after her divorce from Jim?
JR: Yes. She kept a checking account and a credit card. Jim signed off on the joint accounts when they divorced and they became solely hers.
JW: You’re aware that Jim was murdered in Chicago over the past weekend?
JR: Yes. I heard about it on the Saturday news.
JW: Does Jim, or I should say, did Jim also maintain an account here at your bank?
JR: Yes. He and his wife have joint accounts. Savings and checking, credit cards. He added
Marnie after they moved in together down in Colorado Springs. We have a branch office there, so it’s not necessary to come up here for transactions. They can do it all down there, either in person or online.
JW: To your knowledge, did Sammie Newsom ever have any personal contact with Jim or Marnie McCowell?
JR: Not to my knowledge. Jim and Marnie were close to moving to Colorado Springs when Sammie got hired here. I don’t think she ever met them.
JW: Did Sammie ever tell you how long she’d been a customer at the Condition Plus fitness center?
JR: She told me she worked out there for about two years before I started going with her in the evenings. That was on Tuesdays and Thursdays. From the amount of weight she lifted, it seemed to me like she’d been doing it for a long time. I was just getting back into shape and there was no way I could keep up with her.
JW: Did she ever say that she encountered Marnie at the gym?
JR: No.
JW: Did she ever tell you she hired a personal trainer to help her with lifting weights?
JR: She said she had one for awhile in Denver, but her trainer quit and after that she just worked out by herself.
JW: She never mentioned her trainer’s name? Did she ever talk about who it was? Was the trainer male or female?
JR: She said it was a female, but she never told me a name. All she said was that she was really strong.
JW: Is there anything else you can think of that I should know about? If not, I’ll end the interview. It’s 10:12 a.m.
JR: I can’t think of anything right now.
End of Interview
42
Welch called the Chicago Police and asked which detective was handling Jim McCowell’s murder at the Grayson O’Hare Airport Hotel. He asked to be put through to that extension.
“Detective Stanley.”
“Detective Stanley, my name is J.D. Welch. I’m a sheriff’s detective in Roberts County, Colorado. I understand you’re assigned to the McCowell murder.”
“That’s right. What can I do for you?”
“We’ve had two recent killings out here in Colorado and I believe they’re both tied in to your case there in Chicago.”
“Okay. Why do you believe that?”
“Your victim’s ex-wife, Sheila McCowell, was murdered around August 9 of this year. She lived here in Roberts County. The guy who killed her was later found shot to death up in the mountains.”
“Yes? Go on. How does that put my dead guy in your case? It could be a coincidence.”
“Sheila McCowell’s killer had a girlfriend named Samantha Newsom, who worked at the bank where both of the McCowells had all their accounts. Newsom quit her job suddenly last Wednesday and she’s disappeared. She cancelled her phone service, moved out of her place, and shut off her cell phone. She didn’t even pick up her last paycheck. We can’t find her.”
“Maybe she just got tired of Colorado and she moved. Look, I got a lot of work to do, detective. I still don’t see the connection.”
“I think she was back there in Chicago for the weekend, waiting for Jim McCowell – and she probably killed him.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I’m not sure yet. I think McCowell’s current wife may be in on it.”
“Got any proof she was here?”
“Not yet. I’m still checking on some things out here – phone records, bank records.”
“Well, let me know if you get anything solid. In the meantime, this looks like a common random robbery-murder to me, probably by one of our local high priced hookers. She took his wallet out of his coat pocket. Hookers like men’s wallets, in case you didn’t know. We got a witness to the whole thing.”
“You have a witness?”
“Yeah. The doorman at the Grayson Hotel saw it all happen. Says it was a platinum blonde female with a veil over her face and sunglasses. He can’t identify her, though. Too much of her face was covered.”
“How tall was she?”
“About five five, medium build, wearing a long dress and a long coat.”
“Samantha Newsom is about five five, one twenty.”
“Yeah, well, so’s about fifty million other women in the country. Look, Welch, I gotta get going to the autopsy. You call and leave me a message if you get anything more than what you got. Okay?”
“Wait. The guy that was shot up in the mountains was killed with a .45 caliber, using two hundred thirty grain copper jacketed slugs. Not hollow points.”
“Yeah, I got it. Jacketed slugs, a forty-five. Thanks for the call. I gotta go, now. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Well, that wasn’t particularly productive, he thought. Stanley wasn’t too interested in what Welch had told him. Perhaps, after the autopsy, he might be inclined to pay a little closer attention. For the moment he needed to stop and think about which direction to go next. The situation had suddenly gotten very complicated. Sheila McCowell was brutally murdered by Jimmie Slaikovitch in Roberts County. Slaikovitch was shot dead in Park County. Now Sheila’s ex-husband was gunned down in Chicago. Bodies were turning up clear across the country. It was a lot to absorb and digest. The Colorado newspapers and television stations were in a frenzy, mostly because of the financial status of the McCowell Construction Company. While Jim wasn’t a celebrity, he had become rather wealthy. Welch always thought it ironic that the amount of publicity given a murder was often due to how much money the victim had in his bank account.
With that thought, he remembered he had to give Janet a call at the bank. He was doubtful that the Chicago Police would ask the Colorado Springs cops to obtain and execute a search warrant for McCowell’s bank account records. They had no reason to do that yet. Detective Frank Stanley was working the case as an isolated killing and probably wouldn’t want to expend that kind of energy on what he believed was just another robbery-homicide in his big city – where robberies and homicides are a dime a dozen.
He called Janet’s number. He knew she wasn’t supposed to give him any confidential information, but he intended to ask her for some, anyway. As it turned out, he didn’t have to pose the question. She gave him the answer before he could get it out of his mouth.
“This is Janet Rogers, how may I help you?”
“Hi. It’s Welch.”
“Jeez, I’ve been waiting for you to call. All of the McCowell accounts were electronically transferred to an offshore bank last week. They’re just about zeroed out.”
“Christ. Who did that?”
“I have no way of knowing. It could have been either of them. It was done by computer, online.”
“Great. How much was moved?”
“About twenty five million dollars.”
“Do you know where the money was sent?”
“Looks like a bank on Grand Cayman.”
“And I don’t suppose they’ll be too inclined to help us with any information, will they.”