by Jim Riley
The man’s neck was up against a small spruce and his head bent severely to the left. It looked like the impact with the tree may have broken his neck.
I didn’t look back but told her as politely as I could she should get the crowd off our crime scene. I had hoped she picked up on the inclusive “our.” Maybe it would offset some of the hostility. It didn’t.
She and another officer moved the crowd back about thirty feet. Just enough to interrupt the skiers. That was enough to get ski patrol involved, and they moved the crowd along. Nothing like interrupting the cash flow to get some action. Bush walked back over to where I was. I was trying to decipher our victim’s ski path in the snow. It was all but impossible due to all the traffic that had been over it already.
“Done.” It was all she said. Damn, this was going to be a rough day.
I asked her what we knew and she laid the story out. To her credit, she did it professionally and succinctly. It didn’t amount to much.
“The victim, as yet unidentified to us, was skiing down the slope, traversing back and forth, in control and a little slow. Right after the trails merged, a skier came bearing down on him from the adjoining trail. As the vic was just coming up to make his turn back into the slope, the suspect hit him and knocked him into the trees. Based on three witness statements, the strike was intentional. The suspect lowered his body and put his shoulder into the vic, then pushed with his arm. He never slowed down and disappeared into the crowd at the bottom. The suspect was wearing a red and blue ski jacket and bibs, and a black racing helmet.”
I nodded and raised my eyebrows. “Yep. Sounds intentional.”
“You think?” She didn’t say it loud, but loud enough for me to hear.
The coroner was on his way and the body belonged to him, but I was going to get a closer look. Before I did, I leaned in close to my new partner and whispered into her ear, “Get your attitude straight or get out of my fucking scene.”
A close-up look at the body didn’t reveal much except I now could see a wedding band on his hand. “Has the wife showed up yet?”
“No.” I could hear the question in her tone even though she didn’t ask anything.
“Wedding band.” I said, pointing to the hand.
“Maybe he just took the day off from work to ski.”
“Maybe. But I think he’s from out of town, so he may be here with family.”
“How do you know that?”
“Just a guess. Rental ski equipment. Brand new ski clothes. One-week pass ticket on his jacket zipper. And an Eaglenest Ski Area pin on his jacket. Locals don’t buy that shit.” I finished my report as I was standing up and checking out the slope from the vic’s landing spot. I saw that it was in direct line with the merging trail. I also saw that it was a long way from where that trail tied into the main one. Put that on top of the fact that the main trail was over sixty feet across and the suspect had to go a long way to get to the place he knocked the victim down. In fact, there is no way this could have been an accident. For the suspect to have come this far across the slope accidentally would have meant he was out of control, in which case he would have been somewhere in this grove of trees as well. More than likely, he had done it on purpose. At first, I had assumed skier “A” had somehow pissed off skier “B,” and skier “B” had gotten a little payback with a push. Now I was beginning to wonder if it weren’t at least a little more involved.
“How fast was the perimeter set up after the incident happened?”
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
I didn’t say anything, and I wondered if she realized the suspect had been long gone by then. “Way too late. The dude was long gone,” she added.
I nodded in acknowledgement.
“Randy.” I was calling Randy on the radio, and since we were on a side channel I dropped all the radio discipline.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Pull the surveillance tape.”
“Already got it.”
“Thanks.”
“What surveillance tape?” Bush asked me.
“They have a surveillance camera pointed at the ski racks to catch thieves in action. Maybe it’ll show our guy go by there, assuming he got close enough.”
“I didn’t know they had a camera there.”
“It’s a P.D. thing.” I have no idea why I said that. She was already mad enough at me to kill me and leave me dead on the mountain. I just couldn’t help it, I guess.
The coroner arrived and checked out the scene. That went along with his job. He did that to determine if there was anything at the scene he needed to collect that was pertinent to the death. In Colorado, the coroner owns the body and law enforcement owns the scene. That necessitates working together since I can hinder him and he can hinder me. When it works, it works well. When it doesn’t, it can be pretty bad.
Bagging and moving the body was a little difficult. Rigor hadn’t set in, but cold had and he was getting a little stiff. We were trying to be as gentle as possible, considering there was still some of the public standing around and he was someone’s husband, after all. After a few slips and falls in the snow, we said “fuck it” and just stuffed him into the bag like a burrito. Damn the public. Ski patrol took him off the mountain in their rescue sled, then the coroner hauled him off to the mortuary. He would get transferred to the pathologist the next day for an autopsy. I decided I’d take Bush along unless we couldn’t get away for some reason. I wanted to see her hurl.
Randy was meandering around in the crowd, trying to pick up conversations and hoping to come across an as-yet-unidentified witness. He hadn’t had any luck.
“I got the tape and put it in the car. I also pulled the printouts from the lift lines. Both the gondola and the chair lift.”
“Thanks. Good job.”
Randy looked over at Bush, who was just walking up, having caught the next snowmobile off the mountain. “Hello, Kelly.”
“Hey, Randy.”
“Interesting case you caught here.”
She looked at me hard. “Yeah.”
I handed Randy the information we had gotten off the vic’s driver’s license. His name was Daniel Gittleson from Lubbock, Texas. I had been right; he was on vacation. It hadn’t been that hard a guess. It was Christmas break and half of the people on the slope were from out of town. Hell, half of them were from Texas.
Randy headed back to the office to start doing some background and see if we could find a Mrs. Gittleson. He asked me if he was assisting the S.O.’s case as well, and I told him no, he was assisting my case. He snickered and turned to leave. Apparently he knew Kelly Bush well enough to know this was going to get nasty.
It looked like Bush had done a pretty good job of having the on-scene patrol officers gather up any witnesses they could and get statements. We had a list of about fifteen that had seen something or thought they had seen something. It was a decent start on a whodunnit.
I looked at the list of wits and didn’t see anything that jumped out at me. I don’t know what I expected to jump out at me, but then you never know. I handed the list back to Bush. She took it and I told her she was going to have to re-interview each of the people on that list. She didn’t respond but based on the way she was clenching her jaw, I figured she was about to break a tooth.
“You got a better use for your time?”
“No.” It was venomous.
“Come with me ... Please.” I led her to my SUV and unlocked the doors. We both climbed in and shut the doors.
“Look. I was asked to come in on this case. I didn’t go looking for it. I’m doing this as a favor to Toby. If you have a problem with it you need to talk to him. But if I’m going to have to fight you on everything I decide we need to do on this case, one of us is going to have to go.” She knew it would be her.
“Your case. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
“No, it’s our case. You’re my partner. We’ll work the case together. I’m the lead, which means I get to have the last word if
we don’t agree, and I set the direction of the case. Your job is to pull your weight. Being partners means ‘we’ working together.” It must have sunk in a little bit because I could see her jaw muscles relax slightly and she nodded.
“What do you think?” She was changing the subject back to the case. That was a good sign, I guessed.
“I think it was intentional.”
“We already had that much figured out.” There was that tone again.
“No. I mean it was planned. I think this guy was killed on purpose.”
I don’t think I was on her Christmas list yet, but our little talk seemed to help ease the tension. I had no illusions that she wasn’t going to march into Toby’s office and give him an earful on how she could have handled this case just fine by herself. I didn’t envy Toby. Reminded me of when I worked there and did the same thing to him. That man had the patience of Job.
By the time I got back to the office, Randy had a full background on our victim. Daniel C. Gittleson. Fifty-one years old, six feet tall, 220 pounds, brown hair, and brown eyes. Married to Maurine Gittleson with no kids. He handed me the packet. It contained all of the biographical information Randy had just told me, along with his criminal history. It wasn’t very interesting except for a Disorderly Conduct charge several months back. That was a red flag. Why would a man like our vic be getting rowdy or out-of-hand at this late date in his life? Not that it couldn’t happen. Just not normally. The timing was also interesting. “No history until five months before he gets killed. Why, Randy, we might have a clue.”
Randy had already seen it. In fact, he had highlighted it, which is why I picked up on it so quickly.
“Already sent off to Lubbock for the file.”
“You’re the man.”
“But it looks like an arrest at a protest.”
“Well, at this point we’ll take anything we can find.”
I called Tish and told her I would be late coming home that night. She had already heard about the death on the slope. The news wasn’t out yet that it was a murder, which suited me just fine for today. It gave me a chance to solve it before the media was breathing down my neck. After a few days it would come out, and that may be fine too because the publicity may bring out a few more witnesses. Maybe even some who knew something about our vic that we didn’t know.
Although she hadn’t liked it one bit, and even commented that it could have been done by someone else besides her, Kelly re-interviewed all of the fifteen witnesses she could find, which turned out to be five. As luck would have it, she got a new clue on the second witness. It fired her up and helped us out. Not a lot, but every new piece is a piece we didn’t have before. It seems that when that witness got to the bottom of the slope after having been interviewed on the scene, she was telling someone what had happened. She described the suspect and the guy she was talking to told her he had seen the suspect, or at least someone matching that description. The clothes and helmet matched the previous description, but what was new was that the man noticed that the suspect had long, blond hair and a blond beard. Like I said, it wasn’t a photo ID, but at least we knew he was white with blonde hair. Our suspect list had just shrunk by over a few million people.
More importantly, I guess, in the short run, was that it showed Kelly the importance of what I had her doing. It wasn’t busy work. After she calmed down, I intended to lay the case out for her and show her where we were headed. She was working one track trying to identify the suspect, while Randy and I were working on the possible motive for the killing. Yes, we had the more glamorous job, but at this point it was the best use of manpower. Besides, right now she was so focused on solving the crime she would have run right past all the work we had to do to get there. She needed to cool her jets.
Randy was trying to find out where Mr. Gittleson had been staying and whether or not he was alone. The best place to look for a murderer is normally right near home, since most murders are committed by someone close to the victim. We needed to know where Mrs. Gittleson was, which is what I was focusing on.
I called her home phone and got a voicemail message. I hadn’t intended to tell her what was up if she was there, just use a ruse to find out if she was. It didn’t matter, because all I got was a computer-generated voice telling me to leave a message. I could only assume it was the Gittlesons’ phone. Directory assistance had assured me it was, and they’re always right. Right? I called the Lubbock Police Department and talked to a detective. I explained what I had and asked him if he was willing to deliver the death message if she turned up at home. It’s always best to deliver a death message to the next of kin in person. Not for their benefit, although that is a humanitarian consideration, I suppose, but so you can see their reaction. Some people are bad liars, some people are good liars, but aside from people with pathological problems, there are very few great liars. I couldn’t go, so I was hoping at least another detective could. I told him I had no idea if she was involved, but it would be our only first shot at her. He agreed and told me he would research out the Disorderly charge as well.
It was getting close to the end of the day and I had told Randy and Kelly we would debrief at 1700 hours. I had also told Toby and my Chief they were welcome to sit in. At 5:00 sharp I began the briefing. Kelly, Randy, and Toby were there. Chief Stalone was no doubt somewhere strategizing spin control ideas with some of the ski area bosses. I filled them in on what I had found out and done, then Randy followed me, and we ended with Kelly. I did that on purpose so that I could make a big deal of her information. I was reaching out, for what it was worth. I couldn’t tell if Toby was impressed, disappointed, or ambivalent. Kelly was showing more enthusiasm that he was.
We ended the briefing, and I told Randy and Kelly to be there at 0700 hours sharp. It was Kelly’s normal starting time, but Randy grimaced. He normally started work at 8:00 and wasn’t a morning person.
After Randy and Kelly left the room I shut the door. “What’s up, Toby? You okay? Worried about the case?”
“No, I know you’ve got it under control.”
“What then?”
“I just don’t like having to beg or borrow from that jerk.”
I knew he was talking about Stalone, and I was what got borrowed.
“Hell, you were my detective before you were his. You’ll solve the case, and once again, he’ll get the glory and I’ll get what’s left.”
I had never heard Toby complain like that openly. I was a little taken aback. I also felt very sorry for him. He was right. He had put years of effort into serving the public faithfully. He constantly had to beg for more money to pay his men or buy new vehicles. They were always expecting more out of him and his department but never ponying up any money to make it happen.
“Sorry for whining. I appreciate what you’re doing. How’s she doing?” Changing the subject and inquiring about his new detective.
“Good.” It was only a slight exaggeration.
“She giving you any problems?”
“We had a talk.”
“Now you know how I always felt dealing with you.”
I smiled and he patted me on the back. Toby was moving for the door and I stopped him.
“Hey.” He turned. “I’ll make you look good on this one.”
“Don’t get between your boss and his camera opportunity. It could get you fired.”
“Hell, I was looking for a job when I found this one,” I responded back with a smile.
I didn’t sleep a lot that night. I hadn’t expected to and hoped I’d just make up for it the next night or catch a nap during the day. Murders were like that. The first forty-eight hours were critical, and you had to move or get left behind. I had decided that sending Randy to the autopsy was a wiser choice, even if I was going to miss seeing Kelly throw up.
Both Randy and Kelly were there waiting on me, even though I got to the office thirty minutes early. It appeared they hadn’t slept either judging by the bags under their eyes. It seems that all three of us
came up with the same question over the night. What could someone do while they were on vacation that could possibly piss someone else off bad enough to kill them? It really pointed us back to a motive that had developed somewhere else. Back home, maybe.
I had Randy leave immediately for the autopsy and told Kelly to keep working on the witness list. Randy left the room and she stayed behind.
“I’m sorry about yesterday.”
I nodded but didn’t let her off the hook. “Apology accepted. We okay now?”
“Yes. I was just feeling stepped on. It was obviously the best decision on Sheriff Christman’s part. And for the victim and his family, too.”
Wow, that probably took a lot.
“You know, Kelly. You have the natural talent for this job. You just need to get a little experience under your belt. You’ll make a good detective if you stick it out. If you take it all personal you’ll burn out or flame out.”
“Sounds like that’s from personal experience.”
“You have no idea.”
There were three messages on my voicemail. The first was from a victim checking up on the status of her burglary case. I made a note to call her back and went to the next one. The next one was from Coop wanting to know if I was going to make it to the Joint Terrorism Task Force meeting on Wednesday. I made another note to call him and tell him I was in the middle of a murder case and wouldn’t be there. The third one was the one I wanted to hear. It was from the detective at Lubbock P.D.
“Detective Moffat. Detective Bell here. Her car was home and I went and talked to her. Call me and I’ll fill you in.”
I called the number for Bell’s desk, got his voicemail, and left him a message. I checked the time and figured it was 8:25 there, then wondered if he was not a morning person either. I was just walking back to my desk with my second cup of coffee when my phone rang. It was Detective Bell.