Into The Heat (Sandy Reid Mystery Series Book 6)

by Rod Hoisington

  “You know the answer to that.” He looked more disappointed than mad. “You know I could charge you with obstruction of justice for hiding Julia from me.”

  “Hiding? I thought you went out to her house and interrogated her.”

  “Okay, maybe you don’t know. I haven’t yet talked with her—can’t find her. Her phone is in service, but she’s not answering.”

  “I swear I didn’t hide her, Eddy. I left her at her house sadly shaking her head and agreeing to get an attorney and tell all.” She bit her lip for a moment. “Geez, she could be lying dead in a hotel room clutching a bottle of pills. I’ll try calling. I know she’ll talk with me.”

  Sandy called Lester and asked about Julia. He said, “She wasn’t home when I got here and was gone all night. Don’t know where she is.”

  “She driving her Mercedes?”

  “If you’re looking for it, it’s in our garage. Do you know why she always wanted a Mercedes? Well, one summer I was up in New York—.”

  “Later, Lester.” She hung up, dialed Julia and was surprised when Julia said, “I don’t why I answered, Sandy. I thought we were beginning to be okay with each other. Turns out you’ve been giving me bad advice.”

  “Julie! Where are you, are you safe?”

  “Of course I’m safe, I’m with Grant. He picked me up last evening, and we had a wonderful makeup session. I told him everything you said, and he explained how you were lying to me. A good lawyer can get me out of all this at the preliminary hearing, he said. I won’t ever be arrested, let alone go to jail. He even talked about divorcing his wife.”

  “Wake up, Julie. It’s all lies.”

  “I feel giddy as a teenager. Everything is fine now between us. He couldn’t be sweeter. Right now we’re tucked away in a little love nest. Grant had to run out on business for a couple of hours. He’s talking about us driving up to the Georgia mountains maybe tomorrow. He’s so excited about spending time alone with me, doesn’t want me out of the bed. Won’t even let me go home and pack.”

  “It will be a one-way trip to Georgia for you Julie. Get away from him. He wants to kill you. You’ll never leave the mountains alive. When you have a chance, run for it and call me. I’ll find you and pick you up.”

  “I’m not mad at you, Sandy. I know you’ve been trying to help me, but really, you’re the one who needs help, goodbye.”

  She turned to Eddy. “Do you know of any lodge up in north county? Julia mentioned it the other day.”

  “I overheard you talking with her. You call her Julie... pretty close huh? You believe Grant Keller is actually dangerous, don’t you. I hope you know what you’re doing. Yes, there’s a shooting and fishing lodge up in north county. Why?”

  “I don’t believe that’s it.” She started searching on her smartphone. “Here’s a Pelican Lodge.”

  “Yeah, forgot about that one. It’s a private club on the ocean. They’ll never let you past the gate, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even police can’t enter unless accompanied by a member.”

  It was just after noon when she took Holly home with instructions to relax for the rest of the day, to wait about confiding with her mother; they didn’t need her mother reacting badly and dialing 911. And to not answer any calls from Bruce Fowler. It was okay to go into work at The Coffee Mug, but to call Sandy if Bruce Fowler made an appearance.

  Mel Shapiro had agreed to meet with her to discuss the rape examination. She called Martin and asked him to join them. She drove directly to the county courthouse and went up to the fourth floor offices of Mel Shapiro.

  Martin was already there talking with the state attorney. “We just received the hospital exam report and Holly’s statements from Jaworski.” Martin frowned as he handed her the exam report. “You won’t like this.”

  “Hold that for a second. Grant Keller has Julia Bardner in his clutches right now.”

  “You mean like a hostage? Is this where I roll my eyes?” Mel said.

  “Exactly, but she doesn’t know it. Can you get beyond the gate at Pelican Lodge?”

  “We could call in a swat team and use a drone. That would smoke him out with a minimum of gunfire. Shall I alert the media?”

  Martin said, “Relax, Sandy, and take a deep breath.”

  He was right. She needed to calm down. There was no reason to suppose Keller had any urgency in doing away with Julia. He might just be trying to get in control and prevent her from discussing everything with a lawyer. Yet there’s only one reason Keller would take her up into the Georgia mountains. She explained her phone call with Julia.

  Martin said, “Even so, there nothing we can do about Julia’s situation at this point. The best way to help her is to get to Keller’s hired killer. So let’s deal with Holly’s situation right now.”

  Sandy nodded approval and scanned the hospital exam report, but her mind was torn between Holly and Julia. “I’m astounded at this, Mel, the hospital found no evidence of sexual activity. No vaginal tears, no sperm, no STD. They swabbed for DNA and believe they have a useable sample, but we don’t have a Fowler sample for matching, and it’ll take weeks to get the DNA result anyway.”

  Mel tapped a finger on the report. “Finding semen is no help if it was consensual. In fact, a DNA match means nothing if it was consensual.”

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s forget the first part, the consensual part for a minute. Holly grabbed that gun and it fired accidentally, but she grabbed it to protect herself from the attempted rape. Get a warrant to search for the gun and the bullet hole in the mattress or wherever it ended up. You don’t fire off a .45 in a small bedroom without leaving evidence. When you get the gun, then arrest him for attempted rape.”

  “Proof of a gun being fired doesn’t prove he attempted to rape her. Policewoman tested Holly for GSR but it would have washed off her hands long before. All we have is her word on any of this. She claims they first had consensual sex—which we can’t prove—and then he got mad when she refused a second time. He could claim she was playing with the gun when it discharged.” He pushed back from the desk. “Frankly, Sandy, I don’t have enough here to get a search warrant, let alone prosecute Bruce Fowler for attempted rape.”

  “I disagree, Mel. We don’t yet know what took place to get her into bed. At the beginning, she still thought she was dealing with a normal guy. Because she was infatuated with him, she might have disregarded or misinterpreted his roughly pushing her around. If I got this in a courtroom, I believe I could convince a jury that even the sex the first time was not consensual, especially with his overt attempted rape later.”

  Mel said, “Perhaps you could, however, your argument would be all psychological. Considering the negative hospital exam, we have no evidence to back up her story. Frankly guys, the attempted rape case is a non-starter. It’s not going to play out.”

  “You believe Holly, don’t you, Mel?” Martin asked.

  “Remember, she’s young. She was roughed up and traumatized. And on top of everything else, she fired a .45, which must have sounded like a cannon in that bedroom—her ears have to still be ringing.”

  Mel looked over and saw Sandy gritting her teeth. She said, “I’d stake my life that it happened the way she told it!”

  “Okay, okay.” The state attorney flipped the file closed and pushed it away. “I just hope you didn’t promise the girl you’d bring this guy to justice.”

  She reached over and slapped his desk with the palm of her hand. “Of course, I promised her I’d bring the loser to justice!”

  Martin was startled but was keeping quiet. Sandy was doing just fine.

  Mel sat upright, pulled the file back before him and opened it as though he hadn’t already thoroughly studied the few pages. “Okay, let’s go over it again. You suspect Holly was pushed around and threatened as soon as she stepped into Fowler’s apartment, although she claims the sex was consensual.”

  “He kept asking her to come to his apartment. She finally agreed, and has it in her mind t
hat the entire episode was consensual, since she was trying to keep him interested in her. But flirting isn’t consenting to sex. Well, sometimes it is, but that’s beside the point.”

  At that moment, Mel looked eager to agree with anything she said. “Of course, when he came at her the second time it definitely was attempted rape.” He got up, walked around and leaned against his desk. “What you’re really after is the gun, isn’t it? You believe that gun was used to shoot Charlene Faulk.”

  Martin said, “I’m certain she doesn’t mean to minimize what Holly went through, but catching the murderer of Charlene is more important. Getting our hands on that gun is more important than Holly being threatened. In the end, we’re hoping we can resolve everything.”

  She nodded, “We definitely need the gun Fowler used, and I’m worried that we’ll never get our hands on it. Mel, I need that warrant.”

  “Don’t get too eager, Sandy. What if we implement the warrant and don’t find a gun? Then Fowler’s on notice. Keller’s on notice. They’d cover their tracks as never before and we’re left with nothing. And we’d never get either of them.”

  All were silent for a minute, then Mel asked, “Are you certain Fowler knows nothing about your activities so far?”

  “Doesn’t suspect a thing, as far as we know,” Martin answered. “He doesn’t know Holly has talked to us and that we’re in her corner. I assume he’s plotting his next move on Holly, with no idea that someone has connected the cute girl he lured into his apartment, with the woman he shot in Bardner’s front yard.”

  She said, “As it stands right now, he has no idea we’re on his tail for anything. That’s a huge advantage for us. But the problem is, if you so much as bring him in for a traffic violation, he’ll be nervous. And when he leaves, he’ll head straight for that gun and ditch it. If he has any suspicion he’s in trouble for anything that gun is history. We need a search warrant for the gun before the police talk to him about anything.”

  “Or, we can bring him in for interrogation, but only once,” Mel said. “I can’t ask for a search warrant out of the blue without some sort of investigation having taken place,” Mel explained. “I can’t tell the judge we haven’t even talked to the guy.”

  She said, “What if Eddy brings Fowler in for questioning, pretending it’s about a reported attempted rape, but actually it’s to get info about the gun?”

  Mel said, “But the gun has nothing to do with the rape. Fowler never threatened her with the gun. We’d be trying to fool the judge. We want the gun for Charlene’s murder—a completely different case.”

  “Well, Holly fired it,” she said loudly.

  “Holly’s statement about firing a gun wouldn’t be enough for a search warrant to look for a gun in connection with the attempted rape. I need more to ask a judge for a warrant.”

  She stood. “How about this? What if we catch him lying about things we know to be true?” Her eyes were searching upward as she thought. “At the start, Fowler has no idea why he’s been picked up, and we have to catch him lying. One of those lies is easy, you ask him if owns a gun. Of course, he’ll answer in the negative because if he says, yes, then he might be asked to produce it.”

  Martin said, “So, no gun is lie number one.”

  “Now, if he claims no gun was fired, then you’ve caught him in a second lie because Holly fired the gun accidentally, so there is damage proof somewhere in his apartment. He might even lie about Holly being in his apartment at all, and that would be a third lie. I believe her DNA can be found in his bathroom, maybe on a washcloth.”

  Martin said, “I love it.”

  Mel had started nodding his head.

  She narrowed her eyes, “Then you could tell the judge, since Fowler’s lying about all this stuff, we think he’s lying about having a gun.” She knew she had it. “Would her statement and his lies be enough probable cause to get a search warrant for a gun?”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” Mel said. “We tell the judge, we believe her statement about the gun because we’ve caught him in all these lies. He has blown his credibility. Yes, with that angle, I believe the judge would agree there is probable cause to search for a gun.”

  Martin said, “You know, if this works, we’ll have succeeded in connecting Holly Davies and Charlene Faulk, something we would never have bet on. Of course, we’re assuming it’s the murder weapon, and he’s stupid enough to keep it around. Still, he might have. A Glock .45 is an expensive gun, and he most likely couldn’t bear to toss it off the bridge.”

  Mel’s grin changed to a frown. “What if a gun isn’t found in his apartment, or one is found and it isn’t the murder weapon? You need to brace yourself for the possibility that Fowler’s gun is not the Faulk murder weapon.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “I agree, no coincidence,” Martin said, “Keller must have provided Fowler with a suitable murder weapon—he didn’t want Fowler going into a gun shop and buying a Glock. And, Fowler wouldn’t have called attention to himself by going into a gun shop after the murder to buy another one. Where else could the Glock Holly found have come from? No, it might be gone by now, but that was the Faulk murder weapon in his nightstand.”

  She stood. “Can you get Eddy up here now, so we can discuss our strategy? We don’t dare make a move until we definitely know we can take Fowler down on the first try. How soon can we pick up Fowler? You’re going to get a search warrant ready, right?”

  “Settle down, okay?” The state attorney reached for the phone. “We need to work on the proper sequence of questions. We don’t need an actual confession at this time, just enough probable cause to get a search warrant. We’ll discuss all that with Eddy.”

  “We have one shot at him,” Martin said. “So we’d better have a plan and it better work.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  At 1:30 p.m. the next day, Mel, Sandy and Martin were looking through the observation window into the interrogation room—watching and listening to Detective Eddy Jaworski and the suspect, Bruce Fowler. The interrogation room at the Park Beach, Florida police station wasn’t just some room that happened to become available. It was a carefully designed 8 by 10 foot room located in a quiet area of the building away from the hustling parade of uniformed personnel.

  The windowless room contained three ordinary, armless wood chairs and a small metal table bolted to the floor. Fowler, wearing a blue short-sleeved sport shirt and jeans, sat at the table located near the rear wall. The detective sat to the right of the suspect with an unobstructed view of his arms and legs to make possible the reading of his body language. A file folder and notepad were positioned on the detective’s lap. The earphone in his ear permitted those in the observation room to give him suggestions if needed. The third chair in the room was for an observer or the suspect’s attorney and in this case was empty. The two-way mirror, through which he was being watched, was on the far wall in front of the suspect, and placed high enough so the suspect could not see his reflection when seated. The two video cameras were hidden. The physical layout of the room was designed to make the suspect uncomfortable and maximize his sense of powerlessness, leaving him with the general feeling of wanting out of there as soon as possible.

  The detective’s initial conversation was intended to establish rapport. Jaworski had plenty in his bag of tricks yet seldom raised his voice. In the case of Fowler, he skipped the normally nonthreatening introductory questions, such as where do you live and what work do you do; harmless questions designed to loosen up the suspect. Because, as Jaworski, Mel and Sandy had discussed the previous day, they did not want Fowler thinking about his landlord-employer, Grant Keller. If Fowler suspected this interview had anything to do with the murder he’d been hired to commit, he’d clam up, request an attorney and likely be released to go home. And then he’d have time to get rid of the gun before a search warrant could be implemented.

  After several minutes of unimportant conversation to get him talking, the d
etective abruptly asked, “What time did Holly Davies arrive at your apartment?”

  After recovering from obvious surprise, Fowler said, “Is that what this is about?”

  “What time?”

  “Don’t remember. She accusing me of something?”

  Not a good start. Jaworski was disappointed with that answer. Fowler had not been told why he was being questioned, and they had hoped, when he heard Holly’s name, he’d feel enough guilt about his rough episode with her in his apartment, that he’d deny she was there—but he hadn’t lied. They needed to catch him in lying, so that when he denied he had a gun, his obvious pattern of deceit would be sufficient cause for a search warrant. It was still early.

  The detective continued, “Holly says, she didn’t resist at all the first time, and I’m okay with that, you know. You two going at it—no problem. None of my business. You’re here because of the second time. You see, Bruce, forcing her to have sex the second time is why you’re here.”

  “Never had sex with her at all. So, I never forced her to do nothing.”

  His denying any sex at all was a problem. The hospital report had failed to prove any sexual activity. The detective would need to lie to trap Bruce at the proper time. “She says you forced her to have sex the second time. Look at me Bruce. What was that all about?”

  “She’s lying.”

  “Says she got dressed and came out of the bathroom.”

  Fowler stiffened in the chair and didn’t answer.

  “That’s when you told her to get undressed again. Like you ordered her.”

  “Never happened.”

  “She says that’s when you pulled out a gun and forced her.”

  “Told you, she’s lying.”

  “You never pulled out a gun, how did you force her to have sex?”

  “Never forced her to do anything.”

  “You mean you didn’t need to force her?” The detective moved his chair up closer to the table. “You know, if we thought you two just had another go at it, then you wouldn’t be here. Any sensible guy would have helped himself since it was right there. That’s normal—none of our business. You have a gun?”