Roger watched as she went over to the hostess and whispered something to her. Then she walked to the lady and said in a normal voice, “Ma’am, your credit card was declined and the manager would like to talk to you about it now. Please bring your children with you so that they are not left unattended.”
Sam watched as the waitress put a bill in front of her which the woman read. Without saying a word, she got up, got her two kids and followed the waitress around the counter and into the other dining area. That left Percy Evans alone with Sam and Roger. Roger move his hand up and over to his shoulder holster and waited for Sam to make a move.
Sam got up and said loudly, “Damn it! There’s food all over the floor, don’t they ever clean this place? Come on, let’s move to a clean booth, fuck this!”
Sam walked towards the suspect without looking at him but studying the booths to find one that was clean. The booth he chose was behind the suspect and both men walked to it. As they passed beyond the vision of the suspect, both detectives drew their weapons and pointing them at the suspect shouted, “Police! Keep your hands above the table and don’t even breath wrong or you’re dead!”
Roger then moved around in front of the suspect while Sam closed the short distance between himself and the suspect. Sam reached down the front of the suspect checking the usual places for a gun and found it on his right hip. He was carrying a two inch .357 magnum Smith and Wesson. Sam pulled the weapon out and away from the suspect and put it behind his back down in his waistband.
“Now, on the floor! Keep your hands visible and get on the floor!” shouted Roger.
Evans replied, “I’m a retired cop, the gun is legal!”
“Get on the floor now!” Sam yelled in support of Roger’s first order to do so.
The suspect complied and Sam placed him in handcuffs and then pulled out his radio, turned the volume back up and radioed in that they had the suspect in custody and to cancel the lookout. Sam also requested a “cage car,” to transport the suspect down to the precinct. Sam never liked putting a suspect into a detective’s car if it could be avoided as the safety issue always bugged him.
As two uniform officers removed the very pissed off retired cop from the dinner, Sam walked over to Thelma and smiled. “You’re one very cool lady! You handled that like you were a cop, great job!” Sam said.
“Thanks hon, but it comes with being married to a cop. My Danny is in the two-one precinct so I’m not surprised by anything a cop asks me to do!” She said with a laugh and continued, “At first, I thought you were going to try and badge your lunch off of me.”
“Take a free meal? Never, not us!” replied Sam and the other people in the restaurant began to laugh.
They gave a final wave of their hand and left the restaurant and got into their car. “Damn, talk about luck!” said Roger.
“Yeah, well I call it dumb luck for us and bad luck for him. We walk into a random restaurant to get lunch and find the guy the city is looking for sitting in a booth where it would be real hard for him to get to his piece, and we just put the cuffs on ‘em. I wish all our cases went down like that,” Sam said.
As soon as Sam and Roger returned to the office, Sam called and notified the Chief of Detectives that they had apprehended their chief suspect in the serial murders. To say he was delighted would be an understatement.
“Morgan, you bring this case home, and you’re looking at a gold shield, you hear me?” the Chief asked.
“Sure Chief, but Roger is an intricate part of this case, don’t forget,” Sam said as his partner smiled.
“I’ll not forget either of you. Now get in there and make this guy crack!”
“Yes sir,” he said and hung up the phone.
“Well Roger, I’ve just been told that if we crack this and make it, we’ll be the next in line for Police Commissioner of New York City!” Sam said, laughing out loud.
“Sure, well, we may have the guy, but there is still a little thing called proof, so let’s get at it, shall we?” asked Roger.
When they entered the interrogation room, Percy Evans screamed at them. “When in the hell is someone going to tell me what this is all about? I’ve got rights in case you don’t know it. I want a lawyer.”
“Roger, let Mr. Evans out of the cage. Coffee, Evans?” Sam asked.
“Fuck your coffee, get me out of this thing, it stinks in here.”
“Yes, well, we don’t have quite the clientele that you had in New Haven I’m afraid. Lower social class I fear,” replied Sam as Evans came out of the cell.
“So, you know who I am then?” Evans asked with a surprised look on his face. “If that’s the case, you know it’s legal for me to be packing heat. So what gives?”
“Before we get into all that, there is the matter of your rights. You do recall that you have the right to remain silent, and to have an attorney present during questioning, right?” Roger asked.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know my rights. Let’s get on with this.”
“First of all, we knew you were more than likely carrying since you have ammo for a .357 handgun, but one wasn’t found at your home. So, we were being extra careful,” Roger answered.
“You were in my fucking home? Why? You better have had a search warrant or I’ll own this building!” he said with a face that turned red.
“First of all, you wouldn’t want this old building; it’s full of cockroaches, mice and coffee thieves. Second, we’re not the keystone cops, of course we had a search warrant and you’ll find a copy of it at your home if you ever get out of jail,” Sam stated.
“‘If I ever get out of jail?’ What the fuck are you guys talking about? What am I supposed to have done?”
“Mr. Evans, were you ever in the private home of one Anderson Williams?” Sam asked.
“Anderson Williams? No, can’t say that name rings a bell.”
“How about the address then? 2563 South Market Street, here in the city?”
“Hmm, not that I can recall,” Evans replied without much conviction.
“When you retired from the police force, what did you decide to do for additional income to supplement your pension?” Sam asked.
The color began to drain from the face of Evans. “I do some private security work for select individuals.”
“What kind of private security work?”
“Surveillance, mostly.”
“And what kind of surveillance, Mr. Evans? Do you sit in a car watching some broad cheat on her husband while taking photographs?” Roger asked.
“Sometimes. Not always.”
“And on those times that you weren’t spying on people and their sexual affairs, what were you doing?” Sam asked with a stern look on his face that showed he already knew the answer.
“Why, I…did some electronic surveillance kinda stuff.”
“What kind of electronic surveillance stuff Mr. Evans? Specifically, what kind of equipment did you use?” Sam persisted.
“Look, I’ve got a valid security company that helps people out when they need help. There is nothing wrong with that, now is there?”
“Well Evans, there is when you break and enter into people’s houses and set up spy cameras to catch people in their bedrooms. Now isn’t that kinda wrong?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.
“Can we cut the bullshit? We’re gonna be here all night at this rate,” Roger said.
“I want a lawyer,” Evans said and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Fine. We will allow you to make a phone call, and then you will be booked on burglary, attempted extortion, and three counts of murder in the first degree. That of course makes it a no-bond situation so you’ll be going to Rikers Island until trial,” Sam advised him while collecting his papers and getting up.
“Murder, what the fuck are you talking about, murder? I’ve never killed anyone; are you guys on drugs down here in New York?”
“You’ve asked for an attorney and as you know, we are required to cease
conversation with you. We’ll give all that information to your attorney and he can meet with you at Rikers. Roger, will you print and photograph him while I draw up the charges?” Sam asked.
“Wait! Wait a fucking minute. Are you people insane? I’m telling you I don’t know what you’re talking about! You put me in Rikers, and I’ll be dead in two hours, you know that! I’m an old man now, I can’t defend myself against those young punks locked up over there!”
“You asked for an attorney, we have to stop,” Roger said again.
“Okay, okay, I’ll talk without a lawyer here, but I retain the right to stop answering questions at any time. That’s also my right!”
Sam turned around and poured himself a cup of coffee and took his time putting cream and sugar into the cup. He was letting Evans stew in his own juices a little longer. Sam turned back around and said, “Okay, let’s try this one more time then. Sit down.”
“Now, were you ever in the private residence of Anderson Williams?” Sam repeated.
“Yeah, I might have been.”
“Did you install two surveillance cameras in the ceiling of Mr. Williams’ bedroom and bathroom?”
“Maybe, I do a lot of work here in the city and I can’t remember every location, you understand?” Evans replied. “Just because you might have found some cameras or something doesn’t mean they are mine, now does it?” he asked with a condescending sneer.
“It does mean they’re your cameras when we found your fingerprint on the inside bracket of camera number one. How’s that for pointing towards ownership?”
“You never found any prints! I made sure to wipe that stuff down real good!” He shouted out.
Sam sat back and smiled. Roger made a clucking noise with his mouth while shaking his head no. “Fuck!” was the next word out of the retired man’s mouth. He sat back and put his face in his hands.
“Well, now that we have that settled, do you want to tell me why you put the cameras in the Williams house?”
“Can we make a deal of some kind? I can’t go to jail, I really can’t! You know what it’s like for cops on the inside,” he pleaded with Sam.
“No deals until we get full cooperation and then it’s up to the D.A. Since you murdered three court employees including a judge, I highly doubt you will get much cooperation out of them,” Roger said.
“I did not kill anyone! What is this bullshit? Yes, I put cameras inside that house at the request of my client. I did not kill anyone! If you don’t believe me, give me a polygraph damnit!”
Sam looked at Roger with a raised eyebrow. “Who’s the client and why did he want the house under surveillance? Whose idea was it to send a personal picture taken from the video to Mr. Williams in an attempt to extort something out of him with a school yard note that said, ‘I know what you did?’”
“That was part of…….wait! I thought I recognized you! You’re the other guy in the video. You were fucking that guy that night and I got it on tape! Ha! You ready to make a deal now or do you want the department to know that you’re light in the loafers?” Evans asked with a look that said he was now in command.
Sam leaned over the table at the suspect. “Fuck you and your tape. You make one more statement like that and I’ll charge you with attempted bribery of an officer. How does that sound, big shot?”
“What about you? You know your partner is a fag?” Evans asked Roger. Roger laughed out loud and asked him, “Any chance I could see the tape? I’d love to see ole Sammy here laying pipe to the Williams guy.”
“You fucking moron, times have changed. Hell there’s even an organization called GOAL. That stands for the ‘Gay Officers Action League.’ You want to tell everyone that you taped me fucking a guy, go right ahead. Now you wanna answer the question, or do we stop here?”
“Fucking unreal. Okay, I did all that at the request of my client, including sending the photo the next morning.”
“Who’s your client?” Sam asked.
“I can’t tell you and you know it!”
“You’ve got a decision to make. Either you’re gonna take the fall for all this mess, or you’re gonna give up your client who hired you to do this shit. Which is it?” Roger asked.
Sam got up and said, “Think about it. We’re gonna leave the room for a couple minutes, when we come back either give us a full statement or we’re done and you can tell it to the jury.”
With that Sam and Roger left the interrogation room and went out into the hallway. “Roger, I get the feeling that this schmuck doesn’t know shit about the murders. Whoever hired him, that’s gotta be our guy! Whaddya think?”
“I definitely don’t think he knows about the murders. But we still have him on the B&E and other minor charges. Time to call the D.A.?”
“Yeah, go ahead and call the on-duty A.D.A. and get the okay to deal with this clown. I’m sure Anderson won’t care as long as it leads to his father’s killer.”
Sam waited another minute and then re-entered the interrogation room. “Well, what’s your decision?” Sam asked.
“Look, I’m gonna tell you again—I want some kind of deal. I’m not going to jail over this bullshit.”
“My partner is calling the D.A.’s office as we speak. But I’m gonna tell you this one time: you tell us everything you know or all deals are off. If you didn’t kill these guys, then you know who did or you’re connected to whoever did do the murders. So what’s your answer?”
“Okay, I’ll give you anything you want. But first, I want a deal.”
* * * *
Assistant District Attorney Lisa Roberts was on call for exactly these kinds of issues. After Roger laid out the entire case to her, she approved knocking down the burglary to trespassing, and invasion of privacy. This was the deal for full cooperation and any testimony that might be required at trial.
Roger went back into the interrogation room and said, “Well, here’s the deal that’s being offered. You plea to trespassing and invasion of privacy, and the burglary beef will be dropped. But, this is contingent upon you telling us everything, no lies, and testifying in court should that be required to convict another person in the murders we’re investigating. We need your answer now.”
Chapter Twelve
“No jail time, right?” Evans asked.
“No. Large fine and long probation and consider yourself very lucky,” Roger answered.
“Okay, put that in writing and you got a deal,” demanded Evans.
“Alright, standby while I get it typed up,” said Sam. Sam and Roger left the office and put a uniform officer on the door while they went to get the document. Sam called A.D.A. Roberts and got her to fax over the deal so they could get it signed and move on with the case.
“Well, whaddya think? Is he going to give us the murderer or is this going to be another dead end?” Roger asked Sam.
“Hard to tell, but I got a good feeling about this. If some guy hired him to break into Andy’s house, invade his privacy with cameras, and then send him what amounts to an extortion photo, then maybe this guy is also capable of cutting people up. I guess we’ll know more in a few minutes.”
Just then the fax machine by their desk rang and the deal was faxed in from the A.D.A. Sam reviewed it and found it all correct but before he gave it to the suspect, he phoned his Chief and brought him up to date on the case. He was pleased with the progress and wanted to know the instant that Sam felt he had the serial killer’s name.
Roger and Sam walked back into the interrogation room, sat down and slid the document across the table with a pen. Evans picked it up and read it very closely. He then picked up the pen and signed it. Roger had a copy made and gave the copy to Evans who was now ready to talk.
“So, who hired you to break into the Williams house?” Sam asked.
“A guy I knew from Yale. He called me up one day and told me that he thought this Williams guy was fucking his wife and he wanted the actual sex on tape. He told me that he wanted cameras in the guy’s bedroom so that he
would have no problem in divorce court. Imagine my surprise when I saw you fucking Williams and not Williams fucking some broad.”
“What was the guy’s name?” Sam asked becoming a little frustrated at trying to get facts.
“My client’s name is Danny Erickson.”
“Danny Erickson? The same Erickson that was in the club with you and happens to be black by chance?” Sam asked with a stunned look on his face.
“Yep, one and the same. Why do you look so shocked, does the name mean anything to you?” asked Evans.
“Never mind that. What’s his address in New Haven?” Roger asked.
“Oh, he doesn’t live in New Haven, he lives here somewhere in New York City.”
“You don’t know where? How do you communicate with this guy?” Sam asked.
“He calls me on my cell phone and I get my instructions then.”
“Well, did he pay you to do this job by check or credit card?” Roger asked.
“Neither. He paid in cash. Ten thousand dollars for the entire job.”
“Well, what were you supposed to do after you delivered that photo taken from the video that you captured? What did he want done next?” Sam asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m still waiting for those instructions. I began to sense that it was more than just the guy fucking his wife; I got the feeling he wanted to hurt this Williams guy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, he wanted a series of photographs made up from the video and he wanted them sent to the university and to the courthouse with his name written on the backs of the pictures. I wasn’t about to do that however. If he wanted to ruin the guy, he would have to do that himself.”
“Do you think he’ll still call you?” asked Sam.
“I suppose. Course you guys got my cell phone now, so I don’t know if he’s called me in the last couple hours or not. I’ve been too busy playing with you guys.”
“Roger, get his property. We’ll book him on the reduced charges and then set up a plan.”
“You got it,” Roger replied as he left the office.
The Orchid Murders Page 15