by David Archer
“He still hasn’t been found?” Edith asked. “I would think he wouldn’t be that hard to locate. He’s pretty well known, isn’t he?”
“He probably is,” Steve answered her, “but he’s also a detective. If he doesn’t want to be found, he’ll know how to avoid it. Hell, I know I would.”
“Steve is right,” Sam said. “It’s going to take more than usual police work to locate him. I’ve already got Indie working on some things, and we’re going to try everything else we can think of. If our luck holds out, we might be able to catch him before he can get himself established somewhere else.”
“Okay,” Steve said, and then he grimaced. “Damn, I gotta remember not to try to sit up just yet. Even with the pain meds they’ve got me on, that hurts. Sam, you ought to be looking at his finances, too. If he’s going to make a run for it, he’s almost certainly got some hidden accounts, somewhere.”
“That’s a good point,” Sam said, “and I’ll get Indie on that, as well. In the meantime, I want you to rest. Has the doctor had anything to say yet about how long you’ll be here?”
Steve started to speak, but Edith cut him off. “The doctor says he needs to retire,” she said firmly. “He said it’s a miracle Steve pulled through this time, and he wouldn’t take bets on how much damage it did to his heart.” She turned her head so only Sam could see her, and winked. “I know he’s too damn stubborn to retire completely, so I suggested maybe he should just work with Walter. Maybe they could even go into business together, work for themselves and take the cases they want to.”
Sam grinned. “That actually sounds like a pretty good idea,” he said. “You know you’d get plenty of work out of Windlass, but you could also work directly for other law enforcement agencies. In fact, I would bet that insurance investigators would jump at the chance to hire you guys.” He turned to Walter, who was standing beside him. “What do you think, Walter? Think you and Steve should go into business together?”
“We could go into business,” Walter said. “We could make a lot of money.”
Sam turned back to Steve with an even bigger smirk on his face. “That sounds like a vote of confidence to me, don’t you think?”
“It’ll piss Ron off,” Steve said. “I’d be taking his best crime scene man.”
“He’ll get over it,” Sam said, “and he’d be paying you a lot more money than he does now. He won’t care, he just passes it along to the client, anyway.”
“Hey,” Eric said, sitting on the bed on the other side of the room. “What about me? Can I go in with you guys?”
“And me,” Kenny said. “You might need somebody with my computer skills, right, Mr. Beck?”
Steve looked at Eric and grinned. “Ron might pay me to take you,” he said, and then he narrowed his eyes at Kenny. “I won’t even consider it unless you stop calling me Mr. Beck,” he said. “How about just calling me Steve?”
Kenny grinned. “Sure thing, Pops,” he said. “How about it? You, Walter, Eric and me? We’d make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
Steve looked at Sam, who shot him a wink. “That sounds like a pretty interesting proposition,” he said, “and a pretty good team. Walter’s insight into crime scenes, Eric’s genius analysis, Kenny’s computer abilities? All you have to do is be the manager, Steve.”
Steve was quiet for a moment, then turned to his wife. “You’d be okay with this idea?”
“Of course,” she said. “I suggested it, didn’t I?”
Sam chuckled. “Sound like a plan, then. Listen, again, I’m going to get down to the station and get to work. Franklin is around here somewhere, and I want to nail the son of a bitch.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “And punch him once for me, will you?”
“And wait for me,” Denny said. “I’ve had all this babysitting I can stand.”
* * *
Summer and Darren were walking into the building when Sam and Denny pulled into the police department parking lot, and they stopped to wait for them. Sam climbed out of the SUV and leaned on his cane as he hobbled toward the door with Denny beside him.
“Indie told us about the bomb,” Summer said. “We understand everybody is okay, other than minor boo-boos?” She looked at the Band-Aid on Denny’s face. “Does that hurt?”
“Only when I wink at the ladies,” Denny said. “It’s not really bad, just like a big bee sting.”
“Everybody is okay,” Sam said, “although I think this is going to make some big changes for us all. Steve, Walter and Eric are seriously considering leaving Windlass to go into the consulting business together. Kenny Givens is probably going to go in with them.”
Darren grinned. “Good for them,” he said. “With Walter’s talents and Eric’s, they could be making a lot more money in the private sector than they can working for Ron and Jeff. I actually suggested this to Steve once, but he was too loyal to the guys.”
“So, where are we?” Summer asked. “Do we have any kind of leads on Franklin?”
“Nothing yet, but I’ve got Indie working on some things. With any luck, we might get a hit sometime soon. Let’s get inside and see what the locals have come up with.”
They entered the building and were immediately called to Chief Kelly’s office. When they arrived, the receptionist looked up and simply rolled her eyes. “Go on in, Mr. Prichard,” she said. “It’s not like you’re going to wait to be announced, anyway.”
Sam grinned and stepped past her desk. He opened the door to the chief’s office, and then froze in the doorway.
Detective James Franklin was sitting in the chair beside the chief’s desk. When he saw Sam, he held up both hands to show that they were empty.
“We need to talk, Prichard,” Franklin said. “I’m not the guy you’re after.”
“That remains to be seen,” Sam said, forcing himself to step into the room. Darren, Denny and Summer followed, and the two men moved to where they could reach Franklin quickly if the need arose. “Right now, I’ve got one person dead and several others injured, and you are my number one suspect.”
“Prichard, listen to what he has to say,” Kelly said. “If he were the killer we thought he was, I would probably be dead. He was waiting here in my office when I came in this morning, and I didn’t even see him until he announced himself. He could have taken me out without even making a sound.”
“Yeah? You heard the old story about the devil? He always appears in the most beautiful form he can, because he wants everyone to believe he’s innocent.”
“Yes, but I’m not all that beautiful,” Franklin said. “What I am is framed. I went home yesterday morning to pick up a box of files that I had taken home to look through, months ago. I’d forgotten all about them until yesterday morning, and I didn’t really think they would be any help, but there was some background information on some of the church members in it. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I went to get it and brought it back here. As I was getting it out of the trunk of my car, I got hit by a Taser and the next thing I knew, I woke up locked inside the trunk. I managed to find the emergency release and got out, and that’s when I realized my car was inside an old garage. I checked the time on the clock on the radio, and it was almost 5:30 this morning. Besides being tased, I think I was drugged. I called my wife to tell her what happened, and she informed me that I was the target of a manhunt, and everything that happened yesterday.” He lowered his hands and laid them on the arms of the chair he was sitting in. “I figured I had one chance, and that was to come in. I have the key to the back freight entrance, so I managed to sneak in here to wait for Patrick.”
Sam stared at him. “So, you’re saying you have no idea who might have stuffed you in the trunk of your car? That’s a pretty flimsy alibi, Franklin.”
Franklin nodded. “You think I don’t know that? Look, we can do a polygraph, whatever you want, but I’m telling you, I’m not your man. I love my job, Prichard, and I do my best to put people like this away. There’s no way in hell I could ev
er be part of the things Jensen did, and I would certainly never bomb my own department. I have friends in this building, you know?”
Sam limped over to the chair beside Franklin’s, and sat down. “Assuming for the sake of argument that I believe you at all, what’s your take on all this, then?”
“I think you are probably dead on the money with your suspicion that Jensen’s accomplice was a policeman. There are still half a dozen of us who were on the force back then, but I can’t think of any of them I would suspect, which simply means that all of us are suspects. Dan Williams, John Cooper, Charlie Turner, Lester Shaw, Bill Harmon and me; we were all on the force back then. Cooper and I were rookies together, but the others were already on the force before us.”
“Then we need to get all of them in for questioning,” Sam said. “One at a time, in the interrogation room. Ms. Raines will handle the questioning, and she’s very good at it.”
Chief Kelly nodded. “I’ve already sent word out to have all of them come in,” he said. “They don’t know why, so if any of them fails to show…”
“Then that’s quite possibly our guy,” Sam said. “I can go along with that, but this guy doesn’t get out of our sight until we know for sure.”
“I’m perfectly okay with that,” Franklin said. “Believe me, Prichard, I want to get to the bottom of this even worse than you do.”
“I bloody doubt that,” Denny said. “You obviously don’t know Sam Prichard.”
TWENTY-THREE
Sam stifled a grin and turned back to the chief. “How soon can we expect these others to show up?”
“Three of them are already here,” Kelly said. “Charlie Turner and Dan Williams are waiting now, and John Cooper is booking an arrest, so he’ll be available shortly.”
“Then let’s get started,” Sam said. “The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better.”
“I’m ready,” Summer said. “Who do I get first?”
“Take Williams,” Kelly said. “He’s sitting in the hall with Turner, now.”
Sam turned to Denny. “You stay here and keep an eye on Franklin,” he said. “Darren, you come with me and Summer.” He got up out of his chair and led the way, and they found officers Williams and Turner sitting on folding chairs in the hall outside the interrogation room.
Both of them looked up as the three investigators came toward them. Williams spoke first.
“Are you the ones we were told to wait for?”
“That would be me,” Summer said. “You’re Officer Williams, right? Come with me, please.”
She led Williams into the interrogation room and Sam followed. Darren turned and stepped into the observation room, just on the opposite side of the two-way mirror, and turned up the speaker that would let him hear everything that was said in the room.
Summer invited Williams to take a seat, and then she and Sam sat opposite him. She shot him a smile, then leaned slightly toward him, as if she was about to whisper a secret.
“Don’t get all panicky,” she said. “I don’t really think you had anything to do with the shooting or the bombing yesterday, but we have to make it seem like we are treating everyone equally.”
Williams’ eyes grew wide. “Shooting? Bombing? Why in the world would I have anything to do with either of those?”
“Exactly,” Summer said. “You wouldn’t, obviously. That’s what I mean about treating everybody equally, though, we can’t have anyone thinking we were picking on someone unfairly. That means that everybody who was on the police force at least twenty-five years ago gets questioned.”
“Twenty-five years ago?” Williams asked, his eyes suddenly getting narrower. “What’s that got to do with anything that happened yesterday?”
“Officer Williams,” Sam said, “Ms. Raines will be the one asking the questions.”
“No, that’s a fair question,” Summer said. “I don’t mind answering. See, we have a pretty good suspicion that whoever shot Mr. Beck and set off the bomb that killed Ms. Miller was probably one of the officers from back then, and was probably Martin Jensen’s accomplice in all the kidnappings and murders of children.”
Williams’ eyes almost popped out of his head. “Are you freaking kidding me? You think one of us was helping Jensen to do that kind of stuff?”
“Well, it makes sense, if you think about it,” Summer said, speaking rapidly. “Somebody was afraid of Mr. Beck and Mr. Givens, the younger Mr. Givens, really getting to know each other, since the younger Mr. Givens is really Mr. Beck’s son, who was kidnapped twenty-five years ago and never recovered. Of course, everybody thinks that Mr. Givens the younger is the son of Mr. Givens the elder, but that’s only because Mr. Givens the elder didn’t bother to tell anyone that he knew it wasn’t his son when he found Mr. Givens the younger, back when he was a child. He was afraid his wife would get upset if he admitted that it wasn’t his son, so Mr. Givens the elder just told everybody how excited he was to have his son, Mr. Givens the younger, back again, but Mr. Givens the younger remembered some things about Jensen’s accomplice, and we are absolutely certain that the only reason somebody here would know that it could be a problem for him to remember certain things and tell Mr. Beck is if the somebody here who is worried about it was the accomplice back then. See? It’s really simple if you think about it. What were you doing when Mr. Beck was shot yesterday morning?”
Williams was staring at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. “I—I was out on patrol,” he said. “I heard about the shooting on the radio and came rushing back.” He shook his head. “Who’s Mr. Givens? Elder or younger, either one?”
Summer looked over at Sam. “He’s telling the truth, Sam. He’s not our guy.”
Sam nodded. “I agree,” he said. “Officer Williams, you are free to go.” He followed Williams to the door and let him out, then motioned for Officer Turner to come into the room.
Turner entered with a grin and sat down in the chair Williams had just vacated. “Ms. Raines, are you trying to get me in trouble again?”
Summer grinned at him. “Nah,” she said. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with the shooting or the bombing yesterday, but we have to make it look like we’re being fair to everybody. You know what I mean?”
An hour later, after Summer had interviewed all five of the other officers who had been on the force the whole time, they were no closer to having an official suspect than they had been before. Only two of the officers had been less than perfectly forthcoming, Turner and Harmon. Summer had deduced that Harmon was having an affair, cheating on his wife, which might have explained why he was being secretive, but she wasn’t sure about Turner.
“What makes you think Turner wasn’t telling you the truth?” Sam asked. “He seemed pretty sincere to me.”
“The technique I was using is actually a rapid hypnosis technique,” Summer said. “I blast them with what sounds like a bunch of confusing nonsense, and then hit them with a question and they feel compelled to answer honestly. When I asked Turner what he was doing when Steve was shot, he started to say one thing, then shook himself and stopped. He had to think about what he was going to say, and that indicates that he may have been untruthful. I can’t say for certain, but there was something he had to stop himself from telling us. Same thing with Officer Harmon; he had to catch himself because he almost blurted out that he was with his girlfriend at the time.”
“And what about Franklin?” Sam asked. “You got the feeling he was telling you the truth?”
“I think he was, Sam,” she said. “No matter what I asked, he didn’t hesitate even for a second.”
“Yes, but that could simply mean that he practiced his responses,” Sam replied. “He could’ve easily anticipated the kind of questions you were going to ask.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said. “The nonsense part is to get them disoriented, so a sudden question requires an answer. If he was trying not to answer honestly, there would’ve been hesitation and I didn’t see any.”
Sam let out a sigh. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. So, that leaves us Harmon and Turner as potential suspects.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then nodded his head. “I need to make a phone call,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Sam left the interrogation room and walked directly out a side door of the building. He found a spot under a shady tree and took out his phone, then dialed his wife’s number.
“Sam,” she said as he answered. “I was going to call you in a few minutes. I’ve had Herman searching cameras and running facial recognition all morning, and I haven’t found a single trace of Franklin anywhere.”
Sam grimaced. “Yeah,” he said, “about that. I should have called you earlier; Franklin showed up at the chief’s office this morning, and we have been interviewing him and some other potential suspects. That’s actually why I’m calling.”
He could hear a bit of exasperation in her voice. “Well, it would’ve been nice if you’d let me know,” she said. “I could’ve saved an awful lot of time and trouble. What do you need now?”
“Officer Charles Turner,” Sam said. “You should be able to find a picture of him on the department website. See what you can dig up about the guy, would you, please?”
“Okay,” she said. “Anything particular I should be looking for?”
“I don’t know what it would be,” Sam said. “Maybe anything that might connect him to Martin Jensen, back then?”
“That would be a tall order, since there wasn’t a lot in the way of social media back then,” she said. “I guess I can scan the Wayback Machine for old MySpace posts. I’ll see what I can find, and call you… Oh, hold on a second, Mom is beeping in.”
“Just call me back when you have something,” Sam said. “Love you.” He ended the call before she could respond and headed back into the building.