I had to find out who his doctor was. It was always a delicate thing dealing with the medical profession. Those guys hid behind privacy better than the tech companies. In this case we needed to identify the doctor, then all we wanted from the doctor was to know if and when he prescribed terbutaline. We get that, and Stewart’s finished.
We shouldn’t have too much of an issue getting a search warrant. We’d probably see something at his house that let us know his doctor’s name. Who knows, we may even find some of his weapon of choice during the search.
Things always evened out, and we certainly deserved a break in this case. I had to call Vargas and make sure she included the drug in our warrant and told the DA about the threats Stewart made if he balked at issuing the warrant.
Robin. I felt a bit bad at the way I pushed her off when she told me about the threats that Stewart leveled at one of her lovers. But you know what, she wasn’t the straightest with me. Like all type As, she thought she could manage me. That was her first mistake, but in the end, it looked like her only one, unless we could find evidence she was conspiring with Stewart.
I needed to settle on a strategy for interviewing Stewart. He was going to be cagey; we couldn’t expect him to crack easily. But I’d find a way to make a tiny fracture and ram my crowbar in. I couldn’t wait. It was going to be enjoyable watching Stewart squirm.
***
Vargas was at her desk when I got to work in the morning.
“How you feeling, Frank?”
“Almost as good as new. They were able to shatter it in one session. I’ll have some pain as it passes through, but you know how tough I am.”
“Yeah, you’re a real superman.”
“Any news on the warrant?”
“Esposito said we’d probably have it this afternoon.”
“Good, good. Now how we going to play Stewart?”
“Hold on a sec, I thought you’d like to know that Gabelli wasn’t a thief, after all.”
“I didn’t think so. Who stole the money?”
“It was the CFO at Simmons who orchestrated the fraud and made it look like Gabelli.”
“No shortage of people looking to pin crimes on the dead.”
“And how. Now, back to Stewart.”
“We need to figure out how we’re going do this. You think we drag Stewart in before the search or after?”
Vargas said, “If we pull him in before, Stewart’s going to clean up anything that might raise questions. On the other hand, if we showed up with the warrant before talking to him, he’d really be on guard during an interview afterward.”
“I know. But I have enough confidence we’ll crack him, even if he’s on guard. I think ten minutes in, he’ll put his Teflon up.”
“We could arrest him first, then talk to him. That might shake him up.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like it. We might get something we can use early on. We see him, try misdirecting him, maybe he’ll spill something. We arrest him, his lawyer’s there, and I don’t think we have enough to get the DA to sign off on an arrest at this point.”
Vargas frowned. “I know everything is circumstantial.”
“Unless we find something at his place. Okay, what’s our theory about how he killed Gabelli?”
“The two of them got together at Stewart’s home. They’re watching sports and drinking. Stewart had crushed a dozen or so pills and dumped them into Gabelli’s drink.”
I said, “You think he put them all in at once?”
“I’d say he puts about ten percent in the first drink. This way it gets into Gabelli’s bloodstream, and then he loads the rest in the second one.”
“Two drinks would get him to just under the legal limit, right where the autopsy said his blood alcohol level was.”
“After the second drink, Gabelli suffers a massive heart attack and dies.”
“Wouldn’t he be panicking beforehand as his heart started to race?”
“Sure. Stewart probably talked him down, maybe pretends to call an ambulance.”
I said, “Okay, now the body is on the couch or the floor. What does Stewart do next?”
“We know where Gabelli was found. Why don’t we work it backward?”
“Good idea, but before we move on, are we even sure he got the heart attack at Stewart’s?”
Vargas said, “Stewart needed a place where they could have a couple of drinks. That could be anywhere, but more than that, he needed a private place where he could either dump the meds in his drink, at least one time, or plunge a needle into Gabelli. Plus, he wouldn’t know what the reaction would be. He couldn’t count on being able to get Gabelli out of there.”
“You’re right, most likely this happened in Stewart’s place.”
“So how does he get the body to Clam Pass?”
“Any thought to whether he sat on the body before dumping him?”
“I doubt it. Unless it didn’t happen at his house. Very few people have the stones to sleep in the same house with a person they killed.”
“Stones? More like you gotta be out of your mind.”
“Assuming he wanted to get rid of the body as fast as possible, he had to use his car to at least get him close to the water. He may have used a boat afterward, though we have no evidence of that.”
“Stewart would’ve had to move Gabelli down the stairs and into his car.”
“He probably wrapped the body in his garage.”
Vargas nodded. “Then he waited until sometime in the middle of the night to drive it to Clam Pass.”
“I want to take another run at the neighbor who said he borrowed Stewart’s car.”
“Sure. You know, Stewart could have went in another way. We’ve got miles and miles of waterways. He could’ve put him on a boat somewhere, even on one of those streets in Seagate. They all have water access.”
“I’m hoping we don’t have to prove that part. Stewart had an affair with the deceased’s wife. She says he wanted it to continue. We know he threatened other guys who were with Robin. If we can tie him to the drug that killed a healthy Gabelli, we’ve got a lot to work with. And that’s before a search. Who knows what else we’ll get?”
Chapter 52
Luca
Vargas, four uniforms, and I slithered into Calusa Bay and parked our cars in front of Stewart’s home. The street was wet from a rain shower, and steam was rising from the asphalt. Before we were halfway up the stairs, two sets of neighbors opened their doors to see what was going on. On the verge of telling them to get a life, I pushed the bell instead.
Stewart opened the door, and I thrust the warrant at him.
“Mr. Stewart, this is a search warrant authorized by Judge Randolph. It allows us to search your property and seize anything we believe is related to our case.”
“What case?”
“The murder of Philip Gabelli.”
Stewart started to breathe rapidly. “What do I have to do with that?”
“Step aside, Mr. Stewart, we are going to conduct our search.”
Stewart thrust his hand into his pocket and I drew my weapon. Vargas grabbed his arm and said, “Take your hand out slowly.”
Stewart followed her instructions while gasping for breath. “It’s only my inhaler. I need my inhaler.”
Vargas dug into his pocket and came out with a blue inhaler. She read the label, shook her head, and gave it to Stewart.
I said, “Mr. Stewart, you stay in the foyer with Officer Putnak.”
Stewart wheezed. “You’re detaining me?”
“During the course of executing a search warrant the court allows us to control the inhabitants of the property in question.”
He pulled his inhaler out of his mouth. “Control?”
Even though he was sucking away on his inhaler, he was fighting back.
Vargas said, “Mr. Stewart, the law is clear. If you resist we will have to put you under arrest. Is that clear?”
Stewart stepped aside and we spilled into his house. Pulling on gloves, I told an officer to make sure Stewart stayed out of the way and in the foyer.
Vargas whispered, “The inhaler’s a natural product called Dr. Kings. It’s over the counter.”
“Okay, I’ll take the master. You check the kitchen and living room and have the officers search the garage.”
Stewart’s bedroom was colorless. It wasn’t one of those modern white themes; it was a dull, old-looking white. The place was crying for color. I drew the silhouette shades and went straight to the nightstand. My methodology was to open the bottom drawer first and work my way up, leaving each drawer open so I’d know it’d been searched.
The bottom drawer had a dusty pair of binoculars and two old flip phones with dead batteries that I decided to leave there. Inside the second drawer was a thick photo album and about fifteen pairs of neatly folded socks. I pulled the album out and leafed through images of Stewart as a child, teenager, and adult. No one else appeared in the eighty or so photos except you-know-who. I pulled out the picture of Robin and turned it over, but there were no notations.
Staring at the photo, I understood Stewart’s fascination. Wearing a red midriff blouse and the tiniest of shorts, Robin was reclined poolside at the Gabelli house. No doubt, she had the goods. After capturing a cell phone image of the photo, I moved to the top drawer.
Sliding it open, a surge of adrenaline coursed through my body. I walked over to the doorway and stuck my head in.
“Hey, Vargas. You got a second?”
I was snapping pictures of the open drawer when my partner came in.
“What’s up?”
I put a finger to my lips and pointed to three bottles of terbutaline and a box of hypodermics needles sitting to the right of a watch and coin dish.
Vargas whispered, “We got him, Frank, we got him.”
“I think so. But no champagne yet. Continue looking, we may get lucky.”
After noting the pharmacy name and the prescribing doctor, I closed the drawer, then continued searching the master suite. There was nothing else that seemed to matter.
Entering the living room, I said, “Bag all the seat cushions.”
Stewart said, “You can’t take all of them. Where am I gonna sit?”
Vargas pulled me aside and whispered, “We’re not supposed to take anything like that. The warrant’s scope does not provide for that. What are you looking for?”
“Bodily fluids. If he killed him here, maybe Gabelli leaked when he passed.”
“You know we need cause, Frank.”
“Okay, just take the left couch cushion.”
“You sure, Frank? We’ve got nothing to justify it.”
I pointed to a photo of Gabelli and Stewart sitting on the couch.
“That’s really going out on a limb, Frank.”
I smiled. “Maybe, but Gabelli’s got a red shirt on, same as the day he went missing. Bag the photo as well and give Stewart a receipt for what we took.”
***
“Uh, Detective Luca?”
“Yes, this is Detective Frank Luca. Who is this?”
“Uh, my name’s Lenny, Lenny Nership, you came to see me. I live across from Dom.”
I looked at the phone before saying, “Yes. Of course, I remember. You’re the neighbor who said you borrowed Mr. Stewart’s car.”
“I, I don’t know how to say this but . . . I hope I don’t get in trouble or anything. I didn’t mean anything, he said it was . . .”
“Take it easy. No one’s going to get in any trouble. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Well, I never borrowed Dom’s car.”
“The white Nissan Cube?”
“Yeah. He asked me to say I did, but I didn’t.”
“I see. Now, what made you lie to the police? And don’t worry, it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Well, you see, he said he was having an affair with the sheriff’s wife, and he knew the cops were watching him.”
“You never borrowed Mr. Stewart’s car last May?”
“No, sir.”
“Can I ask what made you call today?”
“Well, I love to watch CSI, the Miami one, and I know what it looks like when the police do a search warrant. I saw when you all went to Dom’s house. I figured he did something really bad, so I called him to see what was happening. He said it was a misunderstanding, but it didn’t make sense. Then I started thinking, and I googled the sheriff to see what his wife looked like, but she was like not so pretty and kinda old, a lot older than Dom. So, I started to think that I had to say something.”
“That was very smart of you.”
“I, I’m afraid, though, that if he finds out he’ll go off on me.”
“Rest assured, he’ll never find out. You see, we’ll tell him we have video of him leaving Calusa Bay that night.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Now we’ll need to get a statement from you. Is that okay?”
“Uh, do I have to?”
This was a job for Vargas; she’d disarm him. “Yes, it will be quick. I’m going to send my partner. She’s a nice lady. Her name’s Mary Ann. Please tell her exactly what you told me.”
After hanging up, I fist-pumped. Definitely time to haul Stewart in.
Chapter 53
Luca
I decided to use the smallest interrogation room we had. Stewart had asthma, and the size of the room would make him uncomfortable. He’d hemmed and hawed when we asked him to come in, but the veiled threat that we’d arrest him convinced him to come in voluntarily. That was a good thing, because we only had circumstantial evidence.
Vargas and I had settled on a strategy, now it was time to see where it would bring us. We had Stewart escorted into the room and left him alone for fifteen minutes while we got some coffee.
I peered into the one-way window. Stewart was drumming a thumb on the steel table, appearing defiant. I had raised the thermometer just before he was put in the room. When I adjusted the temperature even higher, Vargas shook her head and left to go to the lady’s room.
By the time she got back, Stewart had spread his elbows on the table. It was showtime. I gave a quick knock and we entered.
“Mr. Stewart, thank you for coming in today. You remember my partner, Mary Ann Vargas?”
Stewart shook his head. “It’s like an oven in here.”
“It does seem a tad warm. Would you like it cooler?”
“Absolutely.”
“No problem. Mary Ann will lower the thermostat while I set up the video.”
“Video?”
“It’s standard practice. It’s for your protection.”
“Yeah, right, my protection.”
“It is, trust me. Think about it, this way the record is straight. There’s no my word against yours. We can’t make up anything. It’s all documented.”
Vargas came back in. “I set it at seventy-two. It feels better in here already.”
Stewart said, “Thank you.”
We settled into plastic chairs opposite Stewart, and Vargas turned on the recording device. After she stated the occupants, time, and date, I began the interview.
“Mr. Stewart, the night Philip Gabelli went missing, your Nissan Cube was observed in Clam Pass Park in the middle of the night. When we questioned you about it, you told us that you had loaned the car to a neighbor.”
“That’s right.”
“And who was that neighbor?”
Stewart pulled out his inhaler. “Lenny Nership.”
“That’s funny, because he said that you asked him to say he borrowed it that night.”
“He’s lying. Something’s wrong with that guy. I feel bad for him, but he’s missing a chromosome or something.”
“Why would he lie about something like that?”
Stewart shrugged. “I don’t know, but why would I ask him to say that?”
> Vargas said, “To keep you away from where the body was found.”
“Yeah, right. You think I killed my best buddy?”
“We’re just trying to understand what you were doing at Clam Pass that night.”
Stewart took a hit on his inhaler. “Maybe I got the nights mixed up. Maybe I was on a date.”
“With who?”
“Probably somebody I met at Campiello’s.”
“You don’t remember?”
Stewart smiled. “I don’t want to brag, but I do okay with the ladies.”
“But not with Robin.”
Anger flashed across Stewart’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just saying.”
Vargas said, “I see you use an inhaler. You suffer from asthma, right?”
“Yeah, had it since I was a little kid.”
“It’s tough. When I was a kid, Katie, my best friend, had it and it was tough at times.”
“I do fine managing it. It doesn’t keep me from doing what I want.”
“I guess all the drugs they have these days makes it easier to manage.”
I thought I saw Stewart flinch before he said, “Guess so.”
I said, “You know your buddy Phil, he died of a heart attack.”
“A heart attack?”
“Yup.”
Stewart started breathing through his mouth. “That’s crazy. He was in great shape. I guess you never know what’s going on inside your body. It’s scary.”
Vargas said, “Certainly is.”
“That’s why I always say you gotta live your life to the fullest. Better to be king of the hill while you can, because you never know when it’s your time to go.”
I found myself nodding. What Stewart said rang true to me and I drifted off. Vargas kneed me under the table as she said, “Something’s bothering me. Phil Gabelli suffered a massive heart attack that caused his death. So why and how did he end up in Clam Pass?”
I said, “Yeah, why would someone make it look like a murder?”
Stewart said, “There’s a lot of twisted people out there.”
Vanished: A Luca Mystery - Book 2 Page 17