Nothing to Hide
Page 12
“It’s not every day I get both local and federal cops in my office,” he said. His office was ergonomically set up to accommodate his small electric chair, which he maneuvered with ease. He had several high-end computers at his work space, and a secondary desk with multiple disk drives laid out.
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to us,” Jerry said.
“You said it was about Billy. I know he was killed a few weeks ago—two months? I didn’t go to the funeral. My brother told me about it.”
“You and Billy were friends.”
“A long time ago.”
“And you were in an accident together.”
“Together?” He shook his head.
“We read the incident report after Mrs. Standish told us about it. You and Billy and another boy were driving four-wheel-drive trucks in the mud and your truck flipped on a rock when Billy cut you off.”
He snorted. “Yeah.”
“That’s not accurate?”
“It’s accurate—but he cut me off on purpose because of that lying girlfriend—wife—of his.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“Because I can’t prove anything. Little miss perfect Susie Boswell. Cheerleader, all petite and sweet. Billy told me later when he thought I was dying that he was sorry he believed her. But I was done. I told him if he stayed with her, we were no longer friends. He chose her. I’m over it.”
He didn’t sound over it. He sounded angry and bitter. Lucy said, “What did Billy believe?”
“Susie and I went out first. But I saw right through her after about three dates. She was downright mean. You’d never know it. She was all sugar and spice and everything nice, but she would say mean things. Like, well, Ginger was this really nice kid who had a serious weight problem. Susie would go up to her at lunch and say maybe she should cut back on the carbs. In her sweet little southern belle voice. Or Bernie who had a stutter. She would mimic him in class and make it worse. My mama didn’t like her from day one, and I should have listened to her.”
“What happened before the accident?” Jerry asked.
“Susie told Billy that I had cornered her in the girls’ locker room after practice and kissed her. Tried to convince her to leave Billy and come back to me. Which was bullshit.” He glanced at Lucy. “Excuse me.”
“Did something happen?” Jerry asked.
“Yeah. I had started seeing a girl, Rose. Really liked her. She was on the cheer squad with Susie. Susie made her life miserable. She didn’t like that I had called her out on her shit, pardon my French. I tried to tell Billy that Susie was trouble, but he fell for her, hook, line, and sinker. She was the prettiest girl in school, and Billy was a good guy—a great teammate, a great friend until he got with her. But Billy wasn’t the sharpest tack. First, he’s very trusting. And second, Susie was the first girl he slept with. First and only. You might think I’m lying through my teeth, but I ain’t. Like I said, we were friends. Anyway, the Thursday practice before that weekend, I had enough. Rose came to me crying. Wouldn’t tell me why, but I got her to confess that Susie had spread a vicious lie about her, in her attempt to break us up. To this day, I don’t know what it was. But I did confront Susie in the locker room, told her that I had enough with her, and if she so much as looked at Rose the wrong way, I would tell Billy that he wasn’t her first—she’d flat-out lied to him that she’d been a virgin when they slept together. I know—because I slept with her, and I knew she wasn’t a virgin then. I’m not proud of it—believe me, I wish I’d just hunkered down and ignored her in high school, stayed off her radar. Because anyone who got on her bad side, stayed there.”
“Are you saying that Billy intentionally flipped your truck?” Jerry asked.
“No. I’m saying that he was angry with me and he intentionally tried to damage my truck. It was my brother’s, and I wasn’t supposed to be driving it in the mud, and I didn’t want any damage. I overcompensated and didn’t see the rock. Flipped right over. It was a freak accident, all because of how I landed.”
“Is that how you were paralyzed?” Jerry asked.
“Indirectly. And I’m not fully paralyzed. My back broke, and I went through physical therapy but the pain was intense. I went through two surgeries over the last ten years, which helped the pain, but made my mobility worse. I can walk short distances with a cane, go to physical therapy every week, but it’s not going to get much better. I’m working on building my endurance so I can walk my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.”
“Daughter? You’re a little young to have daughter getting married.”
“She’s five. Rose and I got married two years after we graduated. We have a daughter, Mary Anne, and a two-year-old son, Grant.”
Lucy remembered what Susan Standish had said about pain pills. “Were you ever addicted to pain medication?”
He snorted. “Susie told you that, right? I’ll bet she did. A bitch from beginning to end.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Jerry said.
“No, I wasn’t. My doctor wanted me to stay on the meds because I was in pain, but they made me fuzzy and I knew there was no way I could go through college like that. After three months I quit. I got my AA at SACC in computer science. Worked myself into this position here. Dealt with the pain. Still do, but like I said, the last surgery really helped.”
“I graduated from SACC,” Jerry said. “Criminal justice.”
“You always want to be a cop?” Joey asked.
“Yes. My dad and my grandfather were Texas Rangers.”
“Well, I always wanted to play football in college and go through ROTC like my brother and join the air force. That was all taken away from me. And Billy still married her. I don’t know what she said, but I don’t care anymore. I haven’t cared for a long time.”
He looked from Jerry to Lucy.
“So why are you two here? To see if I waited eleven years to kill him?”
“More or less,” Jerry said, much to Lucy’s surprise. “And to ask you if there is anyone else who might have wanted Billy dead.”
“Other than Susie?”
“Why would she?”
“Hell if I know. Why does she do anything that she does? Look—Billy was a good guy. Got a little mouthy when he was drinking and would walk into fights because like I said, not the sharpest tack. But he was kind. Some of the guys from school went down to Houston after the hurricane and helped people get out of their flooded homes. Billy was one of them. If someone was having difficulty making their mortgage, he’d give them whatever he had. Never expect it back. I miss having him as a friend—there was a group of us in high school who hung out, and now they hang out with me, or they hang out with Billy, but I told Billy that if he stayed with Susie, we were through. He stayed, and the only time I’ve seen him since is when we were at the same function—a couple times at weddings, and last year at our ten-year high school reunion. And other than a hi, hello, we didn’t talk.” He paused. “I’m sorry he’s dead.”
“So there’s no one else you can think of.”
“Like I said, I wasn’t really much into his life. Maybe he pissed off someone, though it probably wasn’t on purpose and he may not have even realized it. But let me tell you this—at the reunion last year, one of my friends made a comment to a small group of us that Susie was prowling.”
“Which means?”
“Just what you think. That she was interested in men not her husband. And while Billy might not be sharp, and he might be forgiving, and he might believe all her sweetness and tears—if he caught her cheating on him, he would walk out.”
“Do you know this for a fact, or is this just a rumor?”
“Rumor that I believe.”
“And no one told Billy?”
“No one would. No one would want to hurt him like that. Even me, even after what happened our senior year, I wouldn’t hurt him like that. It would be out of spite. Let him find out on his own.”
* * *
“You believe him,” Lucy finally said. “Though there is no evidence of anything he said, you believe him.”
“He was bitter, but not overly so. He was seventeen and his life as he knew it was essentially over.”
“And he built something new,” Lucy said. “He has a wife, two kids, good job. No criminal record.”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with murder. We’ll run his brother, the one in the military, just to make sure nothing pops, but why now? Why eleven years after an accident?”
“And you believe Susan Standish is having an affair.”
“I think it’s something we need to find out about, don’t you?”
She sighed. “Yes.” She really didn’t like people all that much right now.
“Problem?”
“No. We need to know if it’s true, and if maybe her lover wanted that insurance money more than she did. She might not be involved, but that’s not to say she picks lovers who share her nonhomicidal values.” But she could be involved. Why kill three men? To cover up a crime of greed?
“If we believe Joey Adkins, those values are off-kilter,” Jerry said. “Damn, both times I interviewed her I saw exactly what I expected to see. A grieving wife, a pretty young teacher with big blue eyes and tears.”
“And that may be exactly who she is,” Lucy said. “I’ll tell you this: I’ve always been a good judge of character, and interrogation is one of my strengths. I didn’t see anything that would suggest that Mrs. Standish was involved in her husband’s murder. She may be having an affair, but that doesn’t mean that she wanted her husband dead.”
“Let’s find out.”
“How? Ask her?”
“Yep, straightaway I want to ask her. See what she says. But Ash says he’ll have his computer model ready to show us right after lunch. So let’s get a bite in the cafeteria and head over to the crime lab.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tuesday Afternoon
Lucy had known Ash Dominguez since her first joint investigation with SAPD, and she had never seen him so excited over a case.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said to Lucy and Jerry when they walked in. “This is the coolest computer model I’ve ever done.”
“We’re itching to see it,” Jerry said.
“Oh—and the ballistics are back, and the same gun was used in all three murders. So there’s that.”
“Nice to have the confirmation.”
“Look,” Ash said and pointed to a huge screen on the wall. “I got IT to bring in a big screen. I need you to see this in all its glory.”
He flicked off the lights, leaving the lab in semi-darkness. He kept talking. “This program is the best program I’ve ever worked with. It’s truly amazing. Worth every dime.”
“We’re not on the budget oversight committee, Ashley,” Jerry said, getting irritated. “Just show us what you found.”
“Right. So, I input all the facts for each crime. The nonvariables. Position of the body, relationships with the surroundings, the like. Then I input the autopsy results—every identified injury and cause of death. The computer runs through every possible scenario from first attack to after death—like if the body was moved. Then I went in and made logical additions—not adjustments. We can’t change facts, but we can change assumptions. Like, for example, we know that Julio Garcia was fatally hit on the back of the occipital lobe. Based on the angle and the force, and evidence on the body and the ground, I can make the assumption that he was squatting when he was hit.”
“Okay,” Jerry said. “Can you just do it?”
“I wanted you to know the methodology. Because in court, they’ll want to know.”
“And you’re an expert witness,” Lucy said. “You don’t have to explain to us, we already stipulate to your expertise.”
“It’s just—well, so exciting to actually see it. I didn’t go so far as to extrapolate how or why the victims got out of their vehicles, but from first blow to death, I know exactly what the killer did. Ready?”
“I’ve been ready for ten minutes, Ashley,” Jerry said.
“Okay. Okay.” He was practically shaking with anticipation as he pressed a couple of keys on his computer, and the simulation went up on the big screen.
The technology was amazing—the victims looked like people, and Ashley had input the height and weight of each victim, so everything was proportional. The killer avatar was less distinct. There was a core, but shading to indicate that the killer could be taller or shorter.
“This is Billy Joe Standish,” Ash said, his voice low. “From the grease on his fingers, we believe he was hunched over an engine—a car, not a truck. Based on the angle he had to have been leaning over something short, but not squatting.”
As Lucy watched, the same excitement grew in her—this was almost exactly how she’d pictured the scene when she did her spontaneous demonstration on Saturday. But a sick dread filled her at the authenticity—and brutality—of the simulation.
“I set it at half speed, so you can more clearly see the attack,” Ash said. “And—”
“Quiet,” Jerry said.
A generic car had its hood up. Standish was leaning over the car, his left hand near the grille, his right hand reaching for something in the middle of the engine. The killer—who could be between five foot six and six feet tall, according to the simulation—hit him on his upper back, just below his neck. The weapon depicted was an octagon-shaped steel mallet. Standish stumbled. His knee hit the bumper. Another blow as he was turning caught his lower back, and he fell to his knees. He stumbled and a third blow hit his stomach. He was down, but the edge of the road had a slope, and he slid away from the road. The killer followed and hit his hands hard into the ground as Standish was trying to stand. That brought him back down and he rolled over to his back, clutching his hands together to his chest. The killer tried to then hit him in the stomach again, but Standish put up his arms in a defensive posture. He was hit twice in the left arm, then grabbed the handle of the mallet with his right hand. They wrestled for the weapon and Standish had it for a short time but didn’t have strength to fight back.
The killer reached into a utility belt or pocket and used a Taser on stun mode to shock Standish enough to drop the mallet. The killer picked up the mallet and hit him in the groin, then pulled out duct tape and taped his mouth.
Ash paused the simulation. “I don’t know when the mouth was duct-taped, but this seems to be the most logical point.”
“Just keep it going,” Jerry said, his voice rough.
Ash cleared his throat and pressed PLAY.
The killer then pulled Standish’s right hand away from his groin and slammed the mallet down on the hand three times. Standish reached over with his left hand, and the killer hit it three times. The victim lay there a moment, writhing in pain, pulling his arms to his chest, and the killer hit him once more in the stomach and again in the groin. The victim reached for the mallet, and the killer hit them again, then slammed the mallet into his abdomen. Then he stood on either side of Standish, his feet on either side of his hips, pulled a gun from his lower back, aimed, and fired. The bullet hit Standish in the face, just to the right of the nose. The killer holstered the weapon, reached down, ripped off the duct tape, then walked away.
Ash said, “Two minutes, fifty seconds from first blow to death.”
“Next,” Jerry said gruffly.
Steven James had no wounds on his back. Ash had made several assumptions, because there was no known reason for Steven to get out of his car.
Steven is facing his killer. The first blow is to the groin. He’s now down to his knees, and another blow hits in the chest, a golf-club-like swing with the mallet. Now he’s on the ground, curled into a fetal position. The killer kneels over the body, one knee on each side, and holds down one hand. Ash paused i
t again.
“Julie really did extraordinary work. When I started putting this together, she sent me more data—she found very faint bruising on James’s wrists. He was wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt, and we think the killer held his wrist down, causing the bruising.”
Neither Lucy nor Jerry commented, and Ash hit PLAY again.
The killer hit the right hand four times, then the left hand four times. No restraint, as Lucy had thought at the beginning. The pain could easily have incapacitated the victim.
Next, the killer duct-taped Steven’s mouth, stood up, hit him twice in the chest—cracking his ribs—then again in the groin. The killer then stood on either side of the victim and fired the gun into his face. Removed the duct tape. A second later the killer had a Taser in his hand and Tasered Steven James through his shirt, then walked away.
Ash paused and said, “I don’t know where the Taser was—in a pocket or on the ground. I think it was on the ground, but computer probability is only fifty percent. Did it fall out of the killer’s pocket? Did the killer go back and get it, but had brain matter on his hands, and that ended up in the wound? I don’t know.”
“But it was postmortem, according to Julie,” Lucy said.
“Yes, and there was brain matter on his shirt at that location. It’s possible blowback could have reached there—there are a lot of factors. But from the distance and the angle and the evidence we gathered at the scene, I believe it came from the Taser itself.”
“Good. Next,” Jerry said.
Julio Garcia was squatting. Ash’s demo had him looking at a tire on a car. The killer brought the mallet down. Julio didn’t know, or didn’t look back, but fell over—instantly killed.
Ash paused the demonstration.
“What?” Jerry snapped.
“I’m extrapolating something here, so bear with me. Rate of decomp is a science, but it has so many factors that when someone dies we might be able to give the hour, yet not the minute. But certain things happen in the body. I think—and this is something I don’t think will hold up in court, if I was forced to testify—that the killer was expecting him to fight back or get up or something. So when he didn’t, I think the killer hesitated here, for at least a minute, maybe trying to decide what to do.”