“Princess, come girl, Princess. Don't bite the nice policemen, come on with me, I'll get you a doggie treat.” He opened the gate and let the detectives in the yard.
Just as they were about to knock on the trailer door, a blond haired, middle-aged man with two large suitcases came bolting out of the door almost knocking the detectives over in his haste.
“Going somewhere, Mr. Smithson?” Carson grumbled.
“Who wants to know?”
“I'm Detective Brown and this is Detective Carson, SDPD. We have a few questions we'd like to ask you.”
“I'm kinda in a hurry.”
“Only take a minute,” Chuck answered politely.
Joe dropped his bags outside the trailer and opened the door. “Come on in. Looks like I have no choice. Have a seat, gentleman, excuse the mess. It's the maid's day off.”
“Like my partner said, we have a few questions for you Mr. Smithson.”
“This is about my brother Charles, right? Terrible, terrible thing. How can I help you?”
“You're right, it is about the untimely demise of your departed brother, that is true. But more specifically about the relationship between you and a certain “Hooter” girl, alleged to be your late brother Charles' girlfriend. And before you decide to tell us a lie, we have your phone records.”
“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. There is no relationship, I hardly know the girl.”
“Sir, you had countless lengthy conversations with the girl over the past two months. I don't think that would support your contention that you hardly know the girl,” Chuck pointed out, having a seat on an old sofa.
“I want my lawyer.”
“Mr. Smithson, we're not charging you with a crime, we are merely asking you to answer a simple question. Do you know Lola Perez, and are you having a relationship with her?” Carson asked joining Chuck on the same couch.
“Okay, okay, I know Lola, and yes we were having an affair. So what? Her and Charles weren't married or anything.”
“That's true, having an affair with your brother's girl friend, is not a crime, but murder is, Mr. Smithson.” Chuck said, unexpectedly.
“Murder? Are you guys crazy? I didn't have anything to do with murdering Charles. Oh my God! I really need a lawyer now.”
“Charles was loaded, you knew that right? You and Lola wanted his money for yourselves. But Charles didn't want to give you any of it, so you killed him. And now you and his supposed girl friend are running off to spend his money. Is that pretty much how it went, Mr. Smithson?” Carson yelled.
“No, no. It's true I did want his money. That idiot brother of mine. He disappeared seven years ago after my brother Pete kicked him out of his place in L.A. He was homeless for five years on the streets. Then one day he finds this lottery ticket in a dumpster he was going through, you know looking for food. He takes it to the store and boom, it's a big winner.”
The detectives sit silently while Joe continues his bizarre tale.
“ Then one day about two years ago, I get a call. Who is it, of all people, my long lost brother Charles. He got my number from my website, I build websites, by the way. He says he won the lotto and he needs my help to invest the money. I say, hey Charles, why don't you come and live with me. We decide not to tell the rest of the family that Charles is loaded and living with me, better they think he is still missing, right? I decide to hook him up with my girlfriend Lola. We go to the “Hooters and I introduce Lola to Charles, saying she's an old friend. My plan all along, of course, is to steal his cash. He falls madly in love with her. So the plan is working. Then out of the blue, he ends up dead. But I didn't kill him, I swear.”
“No, then who did?” Carson shot back.
“How would I know. All I know is I didn't. He was my brother. Sure I set out to steal his money, but I wouldn't kill him.”
“Maybe those people who were following him, killed him?” What do you know about that?” Chuck asked.
“Oh yeah, the people that were following him, or so he thought. That was a part of the plan to push him over the edge. After five years on the streets, Chris wasn't wound too tight as it was. He suffered from depression, anxiety and was border line schizophrenic. He was diagnosed years ago, but he never took meds. I hired some guys to pretend they were following him and Lola played along. We had him close to the nut house when, boom, our problem was solved, Charles was dead.”
“You're quite the caring and concerned brother, huh? With brothers like you, who needs enemies.” Chuck opined.
“Yeah, well, he didn't know what to do with all that cash anyway. But I'm sorry he's dead. I really am. I don't care if you believe me.”
“Oh, we believe you, don't we Chuck? We're still going to come back with a search warrant, just to make us feel all warm and fuzzy. That be all right with you, Mr. Smithson?”
“Yeah, I don't care, do what you have to do. I ain't got nothing to hide. You know the whole story. I do have a plane to catch.”
“Yeah, about that, I think we're going need you to stick around for a while until we get this matter resolved,” Carson said smiling, but not a friendly smile.
It took an hour but while Carson waited patiently with Joe. Chuck found a judge to issue a search warrant on short notice. The place was small but cluttered, with all sorts of musical equipment and computer stuff, so the search took longer than the detectives had originally anticipated. They didn't find anything, however, to link Mr. Smithson to the murder of his brother; no baseball bat, no .22 pistol, no blood stained shoes or cloth es, nothing.
As Carson and Chuck were leaving, Joe grabbed his bag and headed out the front gate to his car. The detectives assumed he was meeting Lola somewhere, but at this point, it really didn't matter anymore. Joe and Lola had succeeded in getting the victim's money and jewelry, that much was clear, but still there was no evidence linking them to the murder. The detectives still had a feeling that the family on one side of the other was involved, but they didn't quite know how.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Leaving Joe Speckle's trailer, the detectives felt a strong lead had been lost. Sure the brother could have been the murderer, but they believed his story. Sure he was a low life, both him and Lola, but they really didn't seem like the sort to have committed the acts that were perpetrated on the victim. The whole beating with a baseball bat thing suggested a certain amount of rage was involved. Besides, he didn't look like he was up to carrying a man up five flights of stairs and Lola wouldn't be of much help. So Chuck and Carson put Joe Smithson on the back burner, as far as being suspect. They didn't completely rule him out being involved, but knew they had to move on with their investigation in yet another direction.
“Well we still got the other brother Pete and the sister Maria, left on the list,” Chuck said, sitting at his desk glancing over the names of the remaining relatives.
“The brother lives in L.A., and the sister is a college professor back east somewhere. I don't know, but I think pursuing either one is going to be a waste of time.
“So who does that leave us with?”
“The step father, who is a merchant seaman. He's gonna be difficult to check out, I'm afraid.”
“I've been thinking Carson.”
“Don't be doing something you're not used to boy,” Carson said, actually cracking a smile.
“No, for real. The whole way this crime was committed is still strange. Why would anyone go through the trouble of making the victim appear to have been beaten in an interrogation and then carried all the way up to the fifth floor of a high rise under construction. Then put two in the guy's head. Why would the killer or killers go through all the trouble?”
“That's a very good question, my friend. Probably so two knuckleheads like us would be sitting around trying to figure out why they did it. It's true, the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. But so far, it's been effective, 'cause we ain't got a clue as to who and why the crime was committed.”
“Ano
ther thing. The killer must have known that the victim had said people were following him. The whole cell phone thing, full of information that would be the a death warrant for the victim if it fell into the wrong hands. Means it was definitely a family member or someone who had talked to one. Also, of course, a person or persons who would stand to profit from the victim's demise.”
Carson sat and appeared to be in deep thought for a minute. “Another thing we haven't considered, Chuck. Is there a connection somehow between the building where the body was dumped and our perp. Or maybe someone was trying to throw suspicion on the owner of the building, trying to make it look like it was a professional hit. It doesn't appear to be a cartel or mob rub out. But maybe...”
“Maybe it is exactly what it seems to be. Someone trying to make it look like a professional hit in an attempt to throw us off the trail of the actual killer. The location was just a convenient place to dump a body, doesn't mean anything.”
“Right now, that whole family, including the alleged girl friend, Lola, are still suspects, as far as I'm concerned. There's another angle we're missing. Let's dump the phone records for the whole bunch of them for the last two months and see what we've got.”
“Another thing I was thinking about. This is going back to the beginning when we were at the crime scene. The body was transported to the construction site in some type of vehicle. There must have been a lot of blood in that vehicle. Also we still have never found the first crime scene, the one where the beating took place. Either the murderer used their own vehicle or rented or even stole a vehicle. I think also we need to check all the involved individual's vehicles for traces of blood as well as checking rented and or stolen vehicles, particularly vehicles that have been abandoned since the perpetration of this crime. What you think Carson?”
“Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do.”
Chapter Thirty
A parking lot attendant on a routine count of the cars in his lot had noticed a late model red Chevy pick-up truck, that had been sitting for a few days. It was standard procedure to check to see if such vehicles were abandoned and more than likely stolen. He wrote down the vehicle make, model, vin# and license number so it could be called in and find out who the vehicle's owner was.
The vehicle was registered to a Rodney M. Cunningham, 203 N. 2nd Ave., Chula Vista Ca. The truck had been reported stolen a week ago. It was towed to the stolen vehicles lot waiting for the owner to show up, prove ownership and claim the vehicle. Of course since since hundreds of stolen vehicles are found on a daily basis, the chance of finding this particular vehicle was like “looking for a needle in a hay stack.” That was what the perpetrator of the crime had counted on. The cops would never connect him to the stolen truck, or certainly not to the murder.
Perfect crimes are rarely committed. They take careful meticulous planning, and pin point accuracy in their execution. The murder of Charles Smithson wasn't perfect, but it sure had the detectives baffled so far.
“Just checking the phone records for the wife,” Chuck said, sitting in front of his computer, while Carson was crumpling up pieces of parer and tossing them at a nearby waste basket.
“And?”
“Usual calls to her mom . Calls to her daughter and incoming calls from both the mom and daughter. Nothing unusual so far.”
“Well keep digging, partner.”
“Hey, here's one,” Chuck said, tapping Carson who had continued his tossing activity.
“What?”
“Danny Randle. We didn't have him on the list did we? Chuck inquired of Carson who was much too preoccupied to answer.
“No, I don't think so. Oh, let me check the list.” He rustled through a stack of papers, as usual, and finally found the right one. “No, no Danny Randle.”
“Let's find out who this guy is. Could be something, probably nothing. We'll ask the wife who he is when we talk to her again. In the meantime, let's run his name and see if anything pops up.”
Chuck continued his check of Valerie Smithson's phone record. A lot of nothing but finally he discovered what he had been looking for, whether he knew it or not.
“Whoa, Nellie. Check this out Carson. Two calls to Prudential Insurance Company. Very interesting. Best give them a call, see what out victim was worth to his grieving widow.”
“You said that right. You follow up on Danny Randle, see if he comes up in our database. And I'll call Prudential and see what Mrs. Smithson has been talking to them about.”
While Carson was on the phone, Chuck ran Danny Randle through the SDPD database. If he had a record locally it would show up. He knew it was a long shot, but long shots turn out to be winners sometimes.
“Okay, thanks, you've been very helpful,” Carson said hanging up the phone, a big smile on his mug. “Five hundred thousand dollars. Our boy was worth $500,000. Worth more dead than alive, it would seem.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I kid you not, my young friend. Sounds like a good motive for murder to me.”
Just as Chuck was about to reply, his search for Danny Randle suddenly came on his computer screen. “Holy guacamole, would you look at this. This guy was arrested on numerous occasions. Grand theft auto, trafficking in firearms, selling narcotics, petty larceny, attempted murder of his girl friend. He did three stretches of six months each in San Diego jail. Now the question is, who is this guy to the wife?”
And my question is, did the wife want the $500,000 bad enough to have her late, although estranged husband, rubbed out. I think we best have another conversation with Mrs. Valerie Smithson.”
Chapter Thirty One
“Hi, I'm Rodney Cunningham,” he said, showing the gate guard his identification. “Came to pick up my truck.”
The guard looked at his database and saw where the truck was parked. “Mr. Cunningham, you're truck is parked in section 2D, and here are your keys.”
Expecting the worst, Rodney made the walk through the other sections, finally finding the right one. At first, he didn't see his vehicle, getting frustrated and almost ready to go back and give the gate guard a piece of mind for giving him the wrong section, he finally saw his truck. Doing a quick inspection he said to himself somewhat relieved, “Don't look too bad. No apparent damage. Nothing a good trip to the detailer won't fix. I just knew it was in T.J. or some chop shop by now. ” He got in, cranked it up and with a smile of satisfaction, he drove his truck off the lot, giving a wave to the gate guard.
Rodney drove straight to the car wash. He wanted his beautiful truck back in mint condition as soon as possible. Luckily they weren't too busy and he was in and out inside of the hour. Little did he know, or could he have known valuable trace evidence of a horrendous unsolved crime clung to his truck bed, waiting to reveal its story.
The killer did not know, but the owner of the truck had tried as he had, to wash all the trace evidence away, but neither of them had successful in their efforts.
“Hello, is Mrs. Smithson home?” Chuck said, as he was greeted by the mother, Mary, looking none too happy to see the detectives at her door yet again.
“Yes, she's here. Come on in detectives.” She led them through the living room to the den. “Have a seat, I'll get her.”
There was the sound of muffled yelling coming from upstairs followed by the rumbling of the stairs and finally the arrival of Valerie, looking like she had just been awoken from an Ambien coma. “What, what is it now, detectives? I was asleep. I thought we were done?” She said, rubbing her eyes.
“Sorry to disturb your rest, Mrs. Smithson, but we just had a couple more questions, “ Chuck said apologetically.
“What else could I possibly tell you? I've told you everything. I don't anything about Charles' death. Can't you people leave me alone?”
“Calm down now,” Carson said as apathetically as he possibly could. Just two questions. “Who is Danny Randle and how long have you had the half a million dollar life insurance policy on your late husband Charles?”
>
Valerie looked somewhat shocked by Carson's questions, and seemed at a lost as to how to answer. She pulled at her blouse and fidgeted, like someone wrestling with the truth. “Danny? Danny is my brother. He lives in Tucson. Why do you want to know about him?”
“Just a question. And how long have you had the policy on your late husband?” Chuck asked.
“Oh, yeah, the insurance policy. I figured you guys would get around to it sooner or later. Makes it seem I had something to do with his death. Like I would have him killed for the money. Is that what you think? Am I a suspect?”
“Just answer the question, Mrs. Smithson,” Carson growled.
“Okay. Let me see. I didn't have anything to do with it. Charles took out that policy when he was working, right after out daughter was born. I guess its been over thirteen years ago now. He was playing the big family man at the time. I guess you could say we were a family then,” Valerie said looking at the floor with sadness in her eyes. “He wanted to make sure Muffin and I were taken care of if something happened to him. I just kept paying the premium, even through all the years Charles was missing. No, I didn't take out the policy so I could have Charles killed and collect the money, if that's what you think.”
“Okay, we believe you. In fact we found out the date of issue on the policy was around thirteen years ago, but we had to ask,” Chuck said. “Seems your brother, Danny, has been in some trouble with the law, over the years. How long has it been since you've seen him?”
“Now you think my brother killed Charles?”
“How long has it been since you've seen your brother. It's a simple question.”
“Oh, I guess it's been a year or so since I've seen Danny. He lives and Tucson, so he only comes to San Diego for the holidays, if then. Why?”
“Again, just a question.”
“Let's cut to the chase here,” Carson blurted out. “Let's stop pussy footing. A man is dead, and some one around this family knows who did it. We need to start getting some answers on this thing, and real soon. When did you see your brother last? Do you think he came to town, killed your ex-husband and left without you knowing it. Did you promise him a share of the insurance money if he and a couple of his boys took a man out, beat him with a baseball bat and then put two slugs between his eyes. Is that what happened, Mrs. Smithson?”
Seven Years After Page 7