by John Verdon
There was a long silence. When Payne finally replied, the excitement had drained from his voice.
“My father never tried to interest me in anything. The only concern he had was that I never do anything that might embarrass him.”
Gurney felt an unpleasant tremor of recognition. There was a time when he had a similar resentment toward his own father.
48
He wasn’t sure what to do next. He had the feeling that things were coming to a head and he needed to press forward. While the next step was eluding him, he decided to check his phone to make sure he was up to date with his messages.
There was just one, the call from Thrasher that had come in while he was watching Battleground Tonight. He pressed the Play icon.
“Detective Gurney, Walter Thrasher here. No doubt the nonstop horrors of White River are absorbing your attention. But I feel the need to fill you in on the even more gruesome history of your own idyllic hillside. Call when you can. In the meantime, I’d strongly advise you not to do any more excavating—not until I prepare you for what you’re likely to find.”
Gurney felt a surge of curiosity and alarm.
He called Thrasher back immediately, got his voicemail, and left a message.
Then he forced his attention back to the White River affair and what unresolved aspect he should address first. The ice-pick murder of Rick Loomis came to mind, which in turn reminded him of the hospital personnel list and the fact that he still hadn’t examined the section covering employees who had resigned or been terminated.
He went to his desk, got out the USB drive containing the list, and inserted it in his laptop. A few moments later he was opening the Res-Term section of the Mercy Hospital Consolidated Personnel File. As he went through the columns of names and addresses, he recognized only one name. But it definitely got his attention:
JACKSON, BLAZE L., 115 BORDEN STREET, WHITE RIVER, NY
Her resignation or termination—the file didn’t indicate which—had occurred on February 12, just three months earlier. The remaining data was limited to her landline and cell phone numbers.
As he was entering this information in his address book, the Borden Street location was ringing a faint bell. He was sure he’d seen that address before, but he couldn’t place where. He opened Google Street View and entered the address, but what he saw wasn’t familiar. He returned to the personnel list and looked again at the address. That’s when it occurred to him that it wasn’t the physical location that was ringing a bell, it was the typed address on the file page. He’d seen that address somewhere else in the same document.
He went to the main part of the list that was devoted to active employees and began scrolling slowly through the names and addresses. Finally, there it was—in the section covering security, maintenance, and housekeeping:
CREEL, CHALISE J., 115 BORDEN STREET, WHITE RIVER, NY
The landline number given for her was the same as the one listed for Blaze Jackson, but she had a different cell number. So, thought Gurney, they were roommates at least. And possibly more than that.
Just as interesting was the fact that Chalise Creel was a name he’d seen before, and not just in the personnel list. It had appeared on the name tag of the cleaning woman on the ICU floor at the hospital—the woman with the almond-shaped eyes who’d emptied the trash basket in the visitors’ lounge the day he was there with Kim, Heather, and Madeleine. A woman who would have had easy access to Rick Loomis. A woman whose routine presence the nursing staff would have had no reason to question.
The insertion of the ice pick, however, into Loomis’s brain stem would have required specific medical knowledge. Which raised questions about Creel’s background, as well as Jackson’s. Gurney needed to find out what Jackson’s job at the hospital had been, and the reason she was no longer there. Could the Jackson-Creel relationship be connected directly to the murder of Rick Loomis? Might one of them have been the source of the drugs used on Jordan and Tooker? And perhaps the biggest question of all—were Jackson and Creel entangled with Judd Turlock and Dell Beckert?
The hospital seemed the logical place to start searching for answers. Gurney’s call was answered by an automated branching system that connected him eventually to Abby Marsh in the HR department. She was still in her office at a quarter past eight. She sounded as harried as she was the day Gurney had gotten the file from her.
“Yes?”
“Abby, this is Dave Gurney. I was wondering if—”
She broke in. “The man of the hour.”
“Sorry?”
“We have a TV in our cafeteria. I was grabbing a quick dinner, and saw the interview with the district attorney. What can I do for you?”
“I need some information on two of your employees—one past, one present. Blaze Jackson and Chalise Creel. Are you familiar with them?”
“Jackson, definitely. Creel, slightly. Is there a problem?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Is Creel working now?”
“Hold on. I’ll check . . . Okay, here it is. According to the schedule, she’s on the four-to-twelve shift. So, yes, she’d be working now.”
“Sorry, what I meant was, do you know for a fact that she’s actually there?”
“That wouldn’t be in our computer system.”
“But someone must know whether she’s there or not.”
“Her shift supervisor. Do you want me to call him?”
“Please.”
“I’m going to put you on hold.”
“Thank you, Abby.”
Five minutes passed. When she finally reconnected with Gurney she sounded worried. “Chalise Creel didn’t show up for her shift this afternoon, she didn’t show up yesterday, and she didn’t call in either day. Her supervisor tried to reach her yesterday. When he tried again today he got an automated message saying her voicemail was full.”
“She’s been reliable until now?”
“Apparently. No red flags in her file. But the fact that you’re asking about her—is that something we should be concerned about?”
“Too soon to tell. Did you know that she has the same address as Blaze Jackson?”
“The same address?” The worry in Abby Marsh’s voice went up a notch.
“Yes. And the same landline number.”
Marsh said nothing.
Rather than ask whether Jackson had resigned or been terminated—a question that Marsh might not be able to answer for privacy reasons—Gurney employed the presumptive approach detectives often used in dealing with similar situations. “When Jackson was terminated, were there any repercussions?”
“What kind of repercussions?”
“Did she deny what she was being accused of?”
“Of course. Until we showed her our pharmacy security video.”
Gurney decided to continue his presumptive approach. “She had the propofol in her possession? And the midazolam?”
“The propofol was right there on the video. The midazolam would have been harder to prove. Bottom line, she agreed to resign, and we agreed not to press charges. There would have been no point. Propofol is not technically a controlled substance like midazolam, so legally the charges wouldn’t have amounted to much. But who gave you all this information?”
Gurney was tempted to tell her that she just did. But revealing that he’d tricked her would do no one any good. And he wasn’t particularly proud of it. He said instead, not untruthfully, “The truth has a way of leaking out.”
She paused. “Can you tell me why you’re looking for Chalise Creel?”
He worded his answer conservatively. “She may have been in the vicinity of the ICU at the time Rick Loomis was attacked.”
Abby Marsh’s dead silence indicated that she got the point.
The first thing Gurney did after thanking her for her help and ending the call was to check Creel’s landline and cell numbers and place calls to them both. Both calls went to voicemail, a
nd both mailboxes were full. He placed a call to Jackson’s cell number. That call also went to voicemail, and that mailbox was also full. He sat back in his chair and gazed out the rear window at the hillside, now almost entirely enveloped in darkness.
Somewhere in the high pine forest a coyote pack began to howl.
He thought about the link between Blaze Jackson and Chalise Creel. He thought about their unwillingness or inability to accept phone calls, about Jackson’s drug-related exit from Mercy Hospital, about Creel’s access to the ICU.
After a quarter of an hour of indecision he called Torres.
“Mark, there’s a situation we need to look into.” He related his conversation with Abby Marsh and asked Torres to get over to the Jackson-Creel apartment as soon as possible. “If either one of them is present, hold on to them. I’ll meet you there.”
He drove well above the speed limit all the way to the White River exit on the interstate, then relied on his GPS to lead him through the city’s maze of one-way streets. His destination turned out to be in the middle of a ragged block in the Grinton neighborhood.
In the light of the sole functioning street lamp, the side of Borden Street on which number 115 was located appeared intact. On the opposite side only burned-out shells remained. Torres’s Crown Victoria was already there. Gurney pulled in behind it.
Getting out of his car he was struck by the sharp odor of wet ashes and underlying decay. Like the adjoining structures to its left and right, number 115 was a grimy four-story tenement with a steel door. A man and a woman were sitting in plastic lawn chairs in the semidarkness in front of the building. The man was small, wiry, and brown-skinned, with an unkempt gray Afro. The woman was blond and remarkably rotund—creating an impression of having been inflated. Her face was illuminated by the cold glow of her phone screen.
The man watched Gurney approaching. “Apartment you want’s on the fourth floor,” he announced in a loud voice. “Man who came before you has been up there awhile.”
Gurney stopped. “Do you happen to know the women who live there—Blaze Jackson and Chalise Creel?”
The man grinned. “Everybody knows Miss Lovely. She’s famous.”
“What about Chalise?”
“Chalise don’t talk to nobody.”
“Have you seen either of them in the past few days?”
“Don’t believe so.”
Gurney looked at the woman. “How about you. Do you know either of the ladies on the fourth floor?”
She showed no sign of hearing the question.
The man leaned forward in his lawn chair. “Brenda only knows what’s on her phone.”
Gurney nodded. “Do you know if the ladies had any recent visitors?”
“Brothers comin’ and goin’ all the time.”
“Anyone else?”
“Man in the big car, couple days back.”
Gurney pointed to the Crown Vic. “Big car like that?”
“Taller. More shine. Cowboy kind of name.”
“Durango?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure. Durango.”
“You saw the driver?”
“White man. Saw him from my window.” He pointed toward the second floor.
“Can you describe him?”
“I just did.”
“Tall? Short? Thin? Fat?”
“Regular size.”
“Type of clothing?”
“Dark.”
“Hair color, length?
“Dark hat, didn’t see no hair.”
“And this was when?”
“Had to be night before last.”
“Do you know what time he arrived?”
“Nighttime. Maybe ten, eleven.”
“Do you know how long he was here?”
“The man came in the night, is all I know. Car was gone in the morning.”
Gurney was considering his next question when he heard his name being called. He looked up and saw Torres at an open window on the top floor.
“Dave, you need to come up here!” The strain in his voice gave Gurney a hint of what to expect when he reached the apartment.
Gurney entered the building and bounded up through the stairwell two steps at a time. The fourth-floor apartment door was open, held that way by Torres, who stepped back to let Gurney into a narrow foyer lighted by a single ceiling fixture. He handed Gurney a pair of latex gloves and Tyvek shoe covers.
Gurney put them on without asking any questions. He knew he’d have the answers soon enough.
“They’re in the living room,” said Torres.
The sickening smell that intensified as Gurney passed through the foyer was one he knew well but had never gotten used to.
Two African American women in short skirts and satin tops were sitting on the living room couch. They were leaning against each other—as though, instead of going out for the evening, they’d fallen asleep in the middle of an intimate conversation. Looking closer, Gurney could see on their skin the characteristic sheen of autolysis. In addition, there were signs that the first gases of decomposition were beginning to bloat their bodies. But the faces were still recognizable. He was sure the one on the left belonged to the fiery woman he’d seen on RAM-TV’s Battleground Tonight. And he had a feeling that the face on the right belonged to the almond-eyed cleaning woman he’d seen in the ICU visitors’ lounge.
As was usually the case with corpses at this stage, flies were everywhere—most thickly concentrated on the mouths, eyes, and ears. The apartment’s two front windows were wide open, likely an effort by Torres to mitigate the stench.
There were two empty glasses, open bottles of vodka and raspberry liqueur, and two glittery purses on the coffee table in front of the couch—along with a number of hypodermic needles. Gurney counted eight, all used and empty. Their labels indicated they were of the preloaded type containing propofol.
“Blaze Lovely Jackson and Chalise Jackson Creel,” said Torres. “At least that’s what it says on the driver’s licenses in those purses. Sounds like they might be sisters.”
Gurney nodded. “Have you called the ME’s office?”
“Thrasher said he could be here in twenty-five minutes, and that was twenty minutes ago. I called Garrett Felder, too. He’s on his way.”
“Good. You’ve been through the apartment?”
“A general look-around.”
“Anything get your attention?”
“One thing, actually.” Torres pointed to a small desk against the wall opposite the couch. He opened the top drawer all the way. In the back behind a ream of paper there was a plastic zip-top bag containing what appeared to be a stack of twenty-dollar bills. Gurney guesstimated the total, if they were all twenties, to be at least three thousand dollars.
He frowned. “Interesting.”
“The money?”
“The plastic bag.”
“The bag? Why—?”
Torres’s question was truncated by the sound of a car door closing in the street below.
49
Shortly after Thrasher’s arrival, Garrett Felder came trudging up the stairs with his evidence-collection equipment, followed by Paul Aziz with his camera. While the three donned their Tyvek suits, Torres acquainted them with the basic facts of the situation, after which he and Gurney took a low-profile position, mostly observing the technical work in progress and being careful not to get in the way.
From time to time Felder and Aziz expressed their dismay at the odor that had permeated the apartment. Thrasher acted as if it didn’t exist.
After watching them for a while, Torres took Gurney aside and informed him that he’d been contacted earlier that day by the lead singer of an obscure old rock band. “He told me he’d heard a news report a few days ago that members of a white-supremacist group called Knights of the Rising Sun were wanted by the police in White River. That would have been when Turlock and Beckert were publicly linking the KRS website to the Jordan-Tooker murde
rs and to the Gorts. Anyway, the news reporter included the website address in the story. The rock-band guy got curious and went to the site—because he remembered the phrase ‘knights of the rising sun’ was in one of his old songs.”
Gurney chimed in. “And on the website he found the video of him and his band performing that song. But he didn’t know anything about any white-supremacist group and his band had never given anyone the rights to the video.”
Torres looked baffled. “How on earth do you know that?”
“It’s the only way it would make sense, considering the fact that the whole KRS business was a fabrication. I figure the website creator found the old video somewhere—maybe on YouTube—copied it, and used it. I’d also bet that the band’s actual name has the phrase ‘white supremacist’ or words to that effect in it.”
Torres stared at Gurney. “He told me his band, as sort of a joke, was named ‘The Texas Skinhead White Supremacy Heavy Metal Rockers.’ But how could you possibly know that?”
“Once it was apparent that the KRS thing was a form of misdirection, I asked myself how I’d go about creating a phony website like that. Rather than trying to invent the content from scratch, I’d do an internet search of terms like ‘white supremacist’ to see what was out there—what I could adapt or just plain steal. The next step—”
Thrasher interrupted their conversation. “Cadaver van’ll be here momentarily. Time of death I’d put in a window of forty-eight to seventy-two hours ago. I may be able to be a bit more precise when I get them open—day after tomorrow if nothing unforeseen occurs. Meanwhile it looks similar in both cases to the chemical preamble to the Jordan and Tooker homicides. I would expect our lab tests to reveal alcohol, metabolites of midazolam, and signs of propofol toxicity.”
“Why midazolam?” asked Gurney. “Aren’t the other benzodiazepines more readily available?”
“Generally, yes.”
“Then why—”
“Anterograde amnesia.”
“What’s that?”
“One of the special effects of midazolam is to impair the creation of memories. That might be advantageous to a perpetrator in a criminal situation—in case the victim survived. There could, of course, be other reasons for its selection. Up to you to sort that out.” He pointed at one of the bottles on the coffee table. “While you’re at it, I suggest you get an analysis of that raspberry liqueur.”