by Mike Markel
“It’s a tuna salad sandwich, soaked right through the bread. Talk.”
“We’ve got a case we want to run by you. It’ll take five minutes. Can we set something up?”
“If it’s really just five minutes, and you don’t mind taking a short drive, let’s do it now.”
“Great, where are you?”
“I’m at the Plaza. There’s a conference here. But I’d love to leave the building. How about out near the fountains in ten minutes?”
“See you then.”
The three of us headed out to the parking lot behind the building and loaded into the Charger for the five-minute drive to the Plaza. That’s the auditorium and meeting facility the city built about ten years ago. It’s got an indoor arena for concerts and shows and our minor-league basketball and hockey teams.
I parked us in the underground lot and we headed back out to the grey skies. We walked to the little brick plaza where, in the warm weather, tiny nozzles shot water out of the ground in synchronized patterns. Little kids loved it.
Larry was sitting on a bench. It was warm enough for him to open his black wool overcoat, revealing his usual black suit, white shirt, and black tie. His heels didn’t quite reach the ground, but his toes were tapping the bricks. “Robert, Karen, Ryan. Sorry to bring you out here.”
“Not at all,” the chief said. “Thanks for giving us a few minutes of your lunch hour.”
Larry Klein looked at me. “You want to go somewhere we can all sit down?”
“No, this is fine,” I said. “We’ll only be a couple of minutes. Chief, why don’t you take a seat?”
“No, you sit. I’ve been sitting too much today.”
I sat down next to Larry.
“The main case,” the chief said, “is the murder of Lake Williams a few days ago.”
“The junkie?”
“That’s right. Then, yesterday, another junkie, Kendra Crimmons, who lived out in the same homeless camp as Williams, was murdered, too. She was the one who someone paid to deliver the heroin that killed him.”
“Okay, what’s the question?”
“We’ve been working the dealer who we think sold the drugs that killed Williams. He told us he’s been supplying the football and basketball programs for years through a contact at the university, but he wouldn’t finger the contact without a deal with you. We told him he needed to name the contact before we could bring you in. He refused and walked. But we think there really is a contact, and that the football team—the coach, the A.D., and the head of the booster organization—they’re all dirty. So I called President Billingham and told him we know who the contact is—”
“Which you don’t.”
“Correct. Today, the contact appears, with an attorney, at headquarters. The contact is Ronald Weber. He’s an electrician. Owns his own company.”
Larry raised his eyebrows. “I know him. He’s my electrician.”
“We think the football guys got together and they’re offering up Weber to us.”
“Is he willing or unwilling?”
“We can’t tell yet. He seems quite disciplined, wouldn’t you say, Karen?”
“If that means he’s not telling us anything, yeah, he’s quite disciplined.”
“Problem is,” the chief said, “Weber admits he’s the contact, but he hasn’t given us anything to charge him with. And he’s adamant that the football guys don’t know anything about all the drugs and hookers he’s supplied to the kids over the years.”
“Your move.”
“That’s the problem, Larry. We don’t have a move.”
Larry Klein nodded. “Sounds like they’ve thought it through. You can’t charge him; therefore I can’t deal with him to get to the football guys. Presumably, there’s no documentation about the drugs and hookers.”
“That’s right. There’s nothing written down. It’s cash in envelopes.”
“And no probable cause to search phones or computers or banks or anything.”
“No. There won’t be any trail to follow.”
“Even if you think his story is implausible, there’s no legal way to use it to get him.”
“Larry,” I said, “you mean a guy can walk into police headquarters, tell us he’s been supplying drugs and girls to players and recruits for years, and we can’t charge him with anything?”
“But he didn’t do those things,” Larry said.
“What?” I said. “He just admitted he did. Why would you say he didn’t?”
“The same reason you said he did.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his black plastic glasses riding up his nose a little. “You get what I’m saying? The fact he says he’s a bad guy doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. The fact he says he’s a good guy doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.”
I think Larry used to be a teacher somewhere before he came to Rawlings. Sometimes he likes to play these games where he pretends to say one thing when he really means the opposite. Then, while you’re trying to figure out why he said that, you realize you just walked into a trap. I don’t think he means to be a pain in the ass. It’s just the way his brain works.
“So what are we supposed to do?” I said.
“His statement wasn’t really a statement. There’s nothing you can do with it. It’s more of a declaration. What he’s saying is you need to develop the evidence to bring charges against him and the others. He’s not going to deliver them to you—and he’s not going to sacrifice himself.”
“What you’re saying is, we got nothing.”
“The technical term is bupkis.” Larry Klein opened his empty plastic baggie and blew out the crumbs. He sealed it and put it back in his paper sack. “Any other way I can be of no assistance?”
Chapter 26
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
“No idea.” Ryan’s expression was grim.
We headed out to the parking lot behind headquarters, got in the Charger, and drove out along the Rawlings River, some three miles east of town. Eagle’s Nest was going to be the city’s largest new residential development. Sitting in a little valley between the river and the foothills, it would have some two-hundred single-family units, a few dozen three-story condos, and a block of apartments, all of them served by a small shopping center with a few casual restaurants.
We drove in on the main street, which was already paved, a black strip that wound through the dirt and brush. The feeder streets, where the houses were starting to appear, were still hard-packed dirt. On some streets, the houses were just concrete slabs; on others, the framing was complete; on still others, the houses were weather-tight.
Even late on a Friday afternoon, the area was buzzing with equipment and workers in hard hats. Roller trucks were pulverizing the rocky dirt that would become new streets. Water trucks followed, spraying curtains of water to keep the dust down. Earth movers scraped the land, uprooting scrub brush and boulders to make a spot for new concrete slabs. Backhoes were digging trenches for fat white PVC runoff pipes. Dump trucks were building mounds of dirt thirty feet tall. Cranes were lifting pre-built roof trusses onto framed houses.
A few hundred yards in, we approached the construction trailers and the materials-storage area. We drove up to the two squad cars and got out of the Charger. Two officers—Lane and Welsh—walked up to us.
“This way,” Welsh said.
Ryan and I followed them toward the materials-storage area, which was a half-acre of dirt enclosed within storm fencing about ten feet tall with razor wire on top. The gate, wide enough to handle any of the construction vehicles, was open.
The area was filled with raw lumber, trusses, rebar, stone, brick, steel I-beams, and all diameters and lengths of PVC piping. All the materials rested on wood pallets but were open to the elements. The two officers led us into a labyrinth of lumber. We turned a corner and almost stumbled on the body of Cory McDermott, lying between two stacks of two-by-eight-inch pine.
He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a light jacket. His crot
ch was wet, and he smelled like piss. He was lying on his back, his legs bent, the right knee touching the dirt, the left knee resting against a stack of lumber. His arms were outstretched above his head.
Usually, I’m not that good at figuring out cause of death, but this one was obvious even to me. The bruising around the eyes, now purple with a hint of neon green, was from the beatdown the other day. But the three ligature marks around his neck, just below the Adam’s apple, were new. One of the three marks was sloping upward. That usually means the killer was behind the victim, and that the victim had slumped forward so the killer was above him while he tightened the ligature. There was bruising above and below the ligature marks. Little red hemorrhage dots ringed his eyes.
Ryan leaned in to study Cory’s neck. “No fingernail marks. He didn’t put up much resistance.”
“He might have been unconscious when he was strangled.” I started looking around to see if the killer had left the ligature behind. It wouldn’t be a rope, which leaves abrasions in the skin and tends to be thicker. The marks on Cory’s neck were less than a quarter inch thick, about the diameter of a standard electrical cord. I scanned the dirt around the body. It was littered with tin strapping used to bundle lumber, but nothing like an electrical cord.
“Look at this,” Ryan said. He pressed a gloved finger against Cory’s cheek, then withdrew it. The spot on his cheek turned pale. “That’s livor mortis. It only lasts around two hours after death.” Ryan bent over and lifted Cory’s right arm a few inches off the ground. He let go, and it fell to the dirt. “No rigor.”
“He’s been dead only a couple hours.” I turned to Welsh. “You called this in about fifteen minutes ago, right?
“That’s right, Detective.” He was a young guy, no more than twenty-four or twenty-five. He stood straight, eager to help, and eager to look like a professional.
“How’d you know who the vic was? Did you find ID on him?”
“No, but I remembered I’d seen the face before. I went back to the patrol car and got on the computer. You’d put out a couple of bulletins. That was the face I remembered.”
“That’s good. Really good.” I nodded. “Do you know who called it in to headquarters?”
Welsh pulled a small notebook from a back pocket. “Man named Al Stoughton. He’s the construction-site manager. He’s in the big trailer over there.” Welsh pointed.
“Do you know if the ME has been notified?”
“He has, Detective.”
“All right, Welsh. Appreciate it. Set up the tape, will you?”
He pulled his frame up even straighter. For a second, I thought he was going to salute me or something. I turned to Ryan. “Let’s talk to the site manager while we wait on Harold.”
We walked out of the materials-storage area. Off to the right, about fifty yards away, sat a cluster of construction trailers. A big one was set on blocks, not wheels. The sign over the door read, “Manager.” I walked up the three steps and knocked. I noticed a set of three CCTV cameras mounted along the roofline of the trailer.
A baby-faced man of thirty, wearing a reflective vest, opened up. We introduced ourselves. He invited us to come in and sit in the two plastic chairs in front of his Formica-covered desk. A secretary, seated at another desk at the far end of the trailer, nodded to us.
“Mr. Stoughton, can you tell me what happened?”
He looked at his watch. “It was about an hour ago. I got a knock on the door. One of the workers, a framer, came running up to the door. Said there was a dead body inside the materials-storage area. I grabbed my phone, ran out there with him.” He put out his hands. “I saw the guy, called 911.”
“Did the framer say if he knew the guy?”
“Said he didn’t.”
“Is the gate to the area locked? Can only some guys get in?”
“It’s kept open during the day, when we’re all here. When I leave, around six, I make sure it’s locked up. There’s a lot of valuable stuff in there.”
“So the workers don’t have to check in or do anything special when they enter the area, is that right?”
“No, never had any problems with theft by workers during the day.”
“I see you’ve got some CCTV on your trailer. Is it on during the day?”
He shook his head. “I turn it on when I leave.” He looked down at this desk for a moment and shook his head. “Might need to re-think that.”
“There’s no security for people going in and out of the whole construction site, right?”
“No.”
“During the day, have you got lunch trucks, things like that, coming in?”
“Yeah, we do. But again, no problems. And owners. Folks who’ve already bought their homes. Technically, they’re not supposed to be driving around in here, but they’re good people. Some of the really young ones—you know, like me, first house?—they’re excited. They like to take pictures. As long as they don’t get in the way, we don’t stop them.”
“I’m gonna ask a more difficult question. The victim, we know him. Name is Cory McDermott. He was a drug dealer.”
Al Stoughton’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m sorry for that language, ma’am. Just caught me by surprise, is all.”
“Here’s my question: Do you know why he might be here? Are you aware of any dealing going on here?”
“I’m going to be completely honest with you. There’ve been a few episodes of guys breaking out some beers on Friday afternoons. I’ve seen it. You know, they’re sitting in their pickups before heading out. But I swear to you, I’ve never seen a worker either using drugs or buying drugs on site here. We’re really strict with all the contractors: We catch any of their workers carrying out any illegal activities here—that would include drugs, prostitutes, fighting, anything—that worker is gone, and the company is put on notice how if it happens again, the whole company is banned. We’re serious.”
“Okay, Mr. Stoughton. Thanks for all the information.” I stood up and handed him my card. “If you learn anything that might be relevant, give me a call, please. And keep in mind, this is a murder investigation. If one of the workers phones you and wants to say something but he’s afraid he could get in trouble—you know, for buying drugs from the victim or something like that—just give him my number and have him call me directly. A lot of times, the people who help us solve cases like this were doing illegal activities when they saw what happened. Our policy is to get these folks to come forward, cut them some slack on their own infractions if they can help us. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I do, Detective. I understand completely.”
We left the manager’s office. Over by the entrance to the materials-storage area, I could see the medical examiner’s green minivan. “Harold’s here.” We started walking over to the entrance.
The crime-scene tape was up. Harold was on his knees, bent over Cory McDermott’s body. He looked up at me and Ryan as he heard us approach. “You know I’m on salary, right? Not commission. I don’t need a new body every day.”
“Hey, we’re not manufacturing them. If we were, we wouldn’t do it on a Friday. Ten-to-one, we’ll be working the weekend.”
“Is this the same case?”
“Yeah, it is. This is the dealer we think sold the heroin that Kendra Crimmons delivered to Lake Williams.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Anyone else in the supply chain I’m going to examine in the next few days?”
“Can’t make any promises, but I don’t think so.”
“The officers told me you had a quick look at this man. What’s his name?”
“Cory McDermott.”
“You need me on this one?”
“Ryan and I think we got this one figured out. Ligature strangulation. That caused the broken capillaries. And the loss of bladder control. Can you identify the ligature marks? Looks to us like it might be something l
ike an electrical cord. Skinny, smooth.”
Harold Breen shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds right to me.”
“Time of death?”
The medical examiner lifted one of Cory McDermott’s hands off the dirt and moved it back and forth. Then he pressed on the victim’s cheek, just like Ryan had. “Two or three hours. Four, at the outside.”
“What are you looking for in the autopsy?”
“I try not to look for anything in autopsies. Just follow the protocol and see where it leads me. This one looks straightforward. It was ligature strangulation. Assuming he didn’t really die of a drug overdose while he was being strangled, the only real question is the official cause of death. It was probably asphyxia from cutting off his air pipe, but it could’ve been cerebral anoxia. Either way, someone strangled him, probably from behind, with a skinny, smooth cord of some kind. You get to figure out the interesting stuff.”
“Such as?”
“For instance, he’s got the petechiae from the strangulation, but why are his bruises two or three days old?”
“Because he got beat up two or three days ago.”
Harold looked at me. “Hmm. I looked at his fingernails. I don’t see any tissue there. And I don’t see any scratches or fingernail marks or scrapes on his neck. And look at his shirt and jeans. His shirt is still tucked in.”
“All of which says he didn’t put up much of a fight.”
“That’s right,” Harold said. “Is that because he was still hurt from the beating?”
“That would make sense. He was hospitalized but he walked out that night.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He said it was because he needed to get back to selling drugs to make money. But we really don’t know. Maybe it was to kill Kendra Crimmons. Maybe he was gonna go after the guy who later killed him. Or he was trying to get away from the guy. He didn’t tell us what was going on, and he refused to let us protect him while we investigated the two other murders.”
“Well, all right, we’ll put a rush on this one.”
“Do you think you can get to it tomorrow?”
Harold Breen looked at me and sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll start the blood work this afternoon. That will help me rule out a lot of things.”