Chasing Suspect Three

by Rod Hoisington

  “Congratulations to you and Martin on your success with that four million dollar judgment in the Banks versus Olin wrongful death suit. How much do you think you’ll eventually recover?”

  “We couldn’t locate any Abby Olin assets other than the West Palm Beach condo she inherited from her father. We put it up for sale. If we can find a buyer, it might go for a couple million. The widow is still struggling with her kids up in Delaware trying to get by. She can’t believe she’s going to be a millionaire.”

  “And you two will do rather well, when the judgment is satisfied. No more than you deserve. I know you think I helped you somehow with Judge Allen’s decision, but I didn’t interfere. You won fair and square.”

  “I’m certain your influence was quite subtle. Thank you, Mel. What’s up with Moran? He saw me and didn’t scream or anything.”

  “He won’t bother you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you bother back. He knows something would come right back at him.”

  “Just another man underestimating a woman.”

  “You make him nervous. He’s preoccupied with politics and finally has his chance to run for the U.S. House. All thanks to the publicity and the credit you let him take from the big Bichadel Corporation affair. Now he’s afraid you’re going to change your mind and expose him by telling everyone the emperor has no clothes.”

  “Indeed, the emperor has no clothes. Moran couldn’t get a conviction on Jack the Ripper if he confessed. I’ve no reason to rattle his cage at the moment. Maybe I’ll think of something.”

  “You understand you’re on your own with this John Larena murder,” Shapiro said. “I’m sorry we’re facing each other. I’m not on your side in this. I represent the citizens of the state, and I’m going to be rough on you and your client.” He leaned back and smiled. “Even though you secretly adore me, you may not like me so much when this is over.”

  She turned in the chair as she noticed his attention was focused behind her. Sergeant Eddy Jaworski was standing in the doorway holding up some papers. He was the lead detective on the Larena murder case. She supposed he and the ASA had plenty to discuss. Shapiro motioned him in.

  “You’re busy, I’ll come back. Oh, it’s Sandy.” Jaworski greeted her warmly, “I didn’t recognize you from the back with the pony tail. You look different. Usually your hair is swished around all over the place.”

  “I’m letting it grow out.”

  “I’m doing that too.”

  “No, you just need a haircut,” Shapiro said.

  “Okay, enough on the hair,” she said.

  “We have to catch up, Sandy. Too bad you never drink with cops.”

  “I’ll have a beer with you anytime, Eddy.” Having a beer with Eddy meant just having a beer, nothing more. He was about as romantic as a pair of handcuffs, and that was fine with her. She assumed he was happily married; she’d never gotten passed the superficial level with him. Maybe she should. He seemed a very real person and had always been straight with her. They had a lot of easy-going professional contact in the past; however, this would be the first time they took sides against each other.

  “Glad you came over, Sandy,” Shapiro began. “We’ve something for you. Obviously, we think your client plugged her husband. Although it’s not legally necessary for us to provide a motive, we always throw in a couple. The jurors so dearly love it.”

  Never too early to start defending her client, she thought. “I’d be surprised if you find a solid motive for Margo killing him. The separation was quite amicable. In fact, I don’t believe this is a case of domestic violence at all.”

  “You mean if you ignore the fact her husband shot at her at the Community Center. That would anger many wives.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t angry, I said she’s not guilty. Mel, I’m going to make a guess here that you can’t prove it was John who shot at her. I agree she should be angry with someone, except it might be someone else.”

  “But later she didn’t shoot someone else.” Shapiro chuckled.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” she said. “As I recall, the police report on the condo shooting states police found a shell casing. What caliber was it?”

  “Can I discuss this with her?” Jaworski looked at Shapiro who shrugged. “The vic was shot twice. We found the casings from a .45 caliber handgun.”

  “You see, that gives you guys a problem, a .45 caliber pistol weighs more than my client.”

  “I admit it’s a heavy weapon, nevertheless she could handle it.”

  “Do you admit it’s not the murder weapon of choice for a woman? I’m going to bring a fully loaded .45 into the courtroom along with a sack of potatoes, which weighs about the same, and pass it around to the jury. They can decide if a .45 caliber cannon would be the weapon of choice for sweet little Margo Larena.”

  Shapiro leaned forward on his desk. “Fine, you want something better? As you know, we confiscated your client’s cell phone, when we arrested her. We dumped all the calls to see who she’s been calling and who called her. It so happens, she received a text from her victim-husband a half-hour after the Community Center shooting. Eddy, can you decipher all that text message shorthand and read it to her?”

  Jaworski searched a file folder for a minute, and then cleared his throat. “I missed you tonight, but you might as well start squirming now because I’m really going to nail you next time.”

  It took a minute for her to digest it. Wouldn’t it have been nice if Margo had mentioned receiving that text? Wouldn’t it have been nice if she hadn’t just been blindsided by Shapiro? She recovered quickly. “Did her phone indicate she had in fact read the text?” She was grasping at anything.

  “I’m not revealing the prosecution’s case to you.”

  “Well, you’re the one who brought up this big important text message.”

  “All right, her phone shows the message had been read and saved.”

  “Are you certain the text came from John’s phone?” she thought she’d give that angle a try. It must have been good, because it stopped them.

  They gave themselves away by hesitating and exchanging looks. “We’re still verifying the source. It looks like it came from his phone.”

  “It looks like? I’d love to hear you tell a jury that it looks like it came from John’s phone. You haven’t been able to locate his phone, now have you?”

  Shapiro didn’t answer.

  Jaworski changed the subject. “I’d like to interview your client. You could be present of course.”

  “Darn, I’m sure you would have enjoyed it. Margo Larena is such a wonderfully nice woman.”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Shapiro said. “Then, as you no doubt expected, I’ll proceed directly to the grand jury. I’ll send you a formal notice. You can change your mind about any of this, you know.”

  “You’re not really sticking with first degree on this?”

  “Hello. We have her leaving the scene at the time of the murder.”

  “Correction, you merely have unreliable witnesses seeing what they thought might be her, in what might be her car, leave in the dark of night at an uncertain time, which possibly was even hours before the murder. And, assuming they are capable of recognizing her car in the dark, are they certain it wasn’t because she had lived there for a number of years, and they were used to seeing it parked around there?” She bit her lip and stopped there. She didn’t want to make a big point of suggesting Margo wasn’t driving. She didn’t want the police looking for Richie just yet. She wondered just how much they did know.

  “That’s cute,” he said. “In any case, you’re moving too fast. Our investigation is not complete. Jaworski just finished interrogating his sister.”

  She tried not to show any reaction to the mention of the victim’s sister. That would be Claudia Mertens. Interviewing her could just be routine to learn of her brother’s actions, associates, friends, and enemies. Usually the police go out to interview such family me
mbers. Shapiro had used the word ‘interrogate’ that to her meant they had brought Claudia down to the police station. What was their special interest in her?

  “First let me get your client indicted,” Shapiro continued. “Then you can begin tearing my case apart in an effort to plea-bargain. Do you intend to let her testify at the Grand Jury?”

  “I don’t think it would be in her best interests. Although, she’d almost certainly make a good impression.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” Shapiro pushed back from his desk, stood, and smiled at her. “This is your first murder defense, and you may think you’re off to a fine start. Yet, you have no idea how much difficult work you have ahead of you, Counselor. You’re in the big leagues now.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sandy left Shapiro’s office with the name, Claudia Mertens, flashing in her mind. Shapiro had let slip that Detective Jaworski had just questioned her, and it seemed more than routine talking to the sister of the deceased. Now she was wondering if the police thought Claudia had some special connection to her brother’s murder. She intended to question Claudia anyway, and had the address from Margo.

  After checking her phone for missed calls, she found Margo’s address and the one given for Claudia. She’d check out Margo’s place first.

  The small apartment building was a dingy affair on the wrong side of the tracks, as they say. The type of housing you take temporarily, when you first hit town with empty pockets, or get kicked out of your house. Margo would have had a much more desirable lifestyle, if she had swallowed her pride and suffered the embarrassment of continuing to live with a cheating husband in their Florida condo. Nevertheless, Sandy would have also moved out under the same circumstances. So, she not only didn’t blame Margo, she applauded her.

  As promised, the apartment door key was resting in plain sight, on top of the door molding in the hall. Once inside, she closed the door behind her and yelled out the usual, “Anybody home?” She didn’t want to be surprised in a secluded apartment by Margo’s oversexed boyfriend.

  The apartment was decorated in early nothing. An unremarkable two-room affair with a tiny kitchen nook at the far end, plus a separate bedroom and bath. Even so, it beat a studio. Sandy could easily live in such an arrangement, provided she could scrap all the Walmart stuff.

  And it was warm. The weather was humid and the window air conditioner in the living room was off. She walked on through to the bedroom. The dresser drawers were in disarray, and the bed was stripped to the mattress. She remembered the police had arrived with an arrest warrant for Margo. They search but never clean up. Not their problem.

  She couldn’t resist the urge to nose around in someone else’s place. Margo’s medicine cabinet was boring with no occult devices or exotic prescriptions. The small bedroom closet held no dead bodies and only women’s clothing. Clothes were pushed to one end and two dresses had spilled to the floor still on hangers. One was a nice little black dress. She shook them off and hung them both back up. No evidence of any male in the apartment. No stray man’s sock under the bed or second toothbrush in the bathroom. Richie Grant must travel light; or he’d been there and removed his stuff; or the police took it all for evidence.

  As she was leaving, she remembered Margo telling her that when the police arrested her they might not have noticed her key ring with a key to John’s condo. She was pleased to find it there in a brown clay dish on the bookcase shelf just where Margo said it would be. She tossed it in her briefcase. She didn’t expect things to go as smoothly at her next stop.

  She wasn’t eager to meet and question Claudia about the murder. She hadn’t experienced such reluctance since her first assignment years ago as a novice field investigator in Philadelphia. Normally, she delighted in confronting good people, bad people, or other people who might give her a piece of the puzzle du jour. On her investigative job in Philly, a day getting her clothes dirty was common, even getting them torn wasn’t unheard of. Door slams in her face were common. And if she wasn’t thrown out of at least one place during the day, she wasn’t working very hard.

  Who was she kidding? Her reluctance to knock on Claudia’s door just might have something to do with the possibility that she and Chip were paired up in the scorching diary drama.

  Claudia’s apartment was a long drive farther up Holly Avenue and into a quite acceptable old neighborhood where palm trees paraded down both sides of the street and mature oak trees were in abundance. Her building appeared to be a large residence converted into four apartments. The exterior was in good repair and smartly painted white with dark blue accents.

  Near the front door, a small brass-framed index indicated, C. Mertens Apt 1B. She found the street door locked. Just as well, she wanted to look around a little anyway before announcing herself. Or, perhaps she was just delaying facing the former girlfriend. She drove around the block and almost missed the shaded entrance to an alley running up behind the apartments. She parked, walked over, and tried the rear door. Unlocked.

  Just as she opened the back door, a thin man wearing a brown leather jacket stormed out knocking her back out of the doorway. She needed to hold on to the door to steady herself and keep from falling backward. She turned to watch him run across the alley, leap into a late-model silver Buick, and speed away. The green and white Florida plate was all she caught. The name that came to mind was Richie Grant.

  As she turned back, a short man maybe late twenties with overgrown red hair was in the doorway, also watching the man run away. “That guy with you?”

  She shook her head, and stated the obvious, “In a hurry I guess.”

  “Did you get a load of his creepy face?”

  “It happened too fast. But I loved the brown jacket. I know a Versace jacket when I see one.”

  “Should I call the police?”

  “Are you a tenant here?”

  “I’m not a tenant. I own the place.” His eyes flicked over her, checking her out from her feet on up. He held out his hand, “Hi, I’m Billy.”

  So, this was the young man Margo had mentioned. The guy about to be swindled out of everything he owned, if Claudia had her way. “You’re young to own nice income property such as this.” He looked immature. He’d grow up fast by the time Claudia was through with him.

  “Let’s go inside.” Billy led the way.

  She followed him down the hall toward the front. There appeared to be an apartment on each side of the hallway with stairs up to the second floor. She noticed 1B on the door of the apartment on the right.

  “I heard something in the hall. When I opened my apartment door, I saw that guy at Claudia’s door. I think I saw something in his hands. He took off when he saw me.”

  “Like maybe a lock pick? Of course, you should call the police.”

  “They’re going to tell me to fix the lock on that back door.” He looked down and shuffled his feet like a little kid.

  “They’d be right. Call them. That prowler might be going down the block trying doors.”

  “Like you did coming in the back way?”

  She ignored the remark. “You have women living here. So make the place safe, don’t you get it?” She moved closer and resisted tapping him hard on the chest to send him the message. “Someone breaks in here, it’s not you he has on his mind.”

  “I guess I should.” He stepped away to get her out of his face. “You’re not looking to rent, are you? You’re looking for Claudia, I guess. You’re lucky. You caught her at home. Haven’t noticed you around here. She expecting you?” Billy had suddenly become the ever-protecting landlord.

  “Thanks. Billy.” She stepped around him and knocked on the door. She heard a TV inside being muted. After a full minute, the door peephole darkened and the door opened.

  It was a tall, slender blonde woman with cool green eyes who opened the door and regarded Sandy critically. Here was the woman who had dated Chip and given him the diary. Not bad, but not quite the voluptuous piece of dynamite she had pictured from the d
iary. At that particular moment, she was barefoot in a sleeveless white lace top over red straight-legged Capri pants stretching down her long legs. Two green jade bangles were on one wrist. Her precisely streaked hair was mildly disheveled; even so, the expensive highlights and flips from her own beauty spa were obvious. Her classy appearance wasn’t surprising, as Sandy suspected Chip had his pick of even the most glamorous.

  “Yes? Oh, don’t tell me, more police?” The woman held the door open.

  Sandy wished she hadn’t come. Until just then, she didn’t have a face to go with the mental image she had created while reading the diary. Now the female lead in the diary performances stood clearly before her. Did the woman appear capable of the multitasking in bed as described in the diary? Absolutely. If the male in the diary was Chip, the picture was now complete. Neither sex partner remained faceless now. She felt a lump of lead in her stomach and had to look away. She couldn’t hold her gaze on the woman without visualizing two entangled naked bodies.

  “My God girl, are you all right? You look pale. Come over here and sit.” The woman tried to take Sandy’s arm, but she politely turned away. Was this the woman Chip had touched in every possible way?

  “Just let me sit and get my breath, must have been the heat out there.”

  Claudia motioned to the burnt-orange colored couch. She moved her cork wedge sandals from in front of the couch and brushed the magazines aside. Sandy sat with her briefcase at her feet.

  “Like some water?”

  Sandy nodded, as it would give her an extra minute to compose herself and look around. The room was nicely furnished in muted oranges and browns with glass-topped coffee and end tables. The walls held several paintings of Florida flora. The far wall near the kitchen was tiled with mirrors and reflected some hanging plants. Claudia returned and set the glass of water on the coffee table. She sank easily into the orange leather arm chair and rested her feet up on the matching hassock. “Look, I’ve seen enough police for one day.”