Fact or Fiction_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  Karen smiled at her. “Honey,” she said, “that puts you and me on the same page.”

  Melinda gave her a nervous smile. “I hope so,” she said. “The thing is—something I need you to understand is that my father terrifies me. I’m not here because I want revenge against him; I’m here because I’m terrified he’s going to find me. If he does—there’s no way I can fight him, no way I can get away from him. I meant what I said. I’d rather be dead than have to be under his control again.”

  “I won’t let that happen, Melinda,” Karen said firmly. “I promise you, I won’t let that happen.”

  She took down all of Melinda’s information and the girl left, after which Karen began typing up a report. The case had never been closed, but it was so old that she’d have to make a convincing argument to get it assigned to her. She spent the rest of the day typing it up and going over it, looking for anything she could add that would help her finally bring Daniel “the Digger” Samara to justice.

  When she was finished, she printed out the report and took it directly to Captain Barnhart, who was in charge of the homicide division. He happened to be in his office, which was unusual at that time of day, and invited her in. She handed him the report and then spent the next hour explaining it in detail.

  “Let me get this straight,” Barnhart said. “You got a witness who’s come forward after ten years on a cold murder case, and you’ve heard a rumor that the perpetrator is in the area. Based on that, you want me to make this your priority assignment?”

  “Yes, sir,” Karen said. “Sir, I had this man back when it happened, but he was so slick we couldn’t pin it on him. Now, with the witness who was actually forced to help dispose of the body parts, we can finally close that case and put away a man who is guilty of at least two murders, and one of those was a five-year-old girl that was his own daughter. I think it’s absolutely essential that we devote whatever time and resources are necessary to bring him down.”

  Barnhart was holding a file folder with her report in it and glancing through it, but he suddenly closed it and tossed it onto his desk. “Karen, I don’t entirely disagree,” he said. “The trouble is, this isn’t even our case anymore. It got transferred to Cold Case Division five years ago. I’d have to go all the way to the chief and beg to get it back, but we’ve got enough to do as it is. I think what you need to do is take all of this information down to Cold Case. Talk to Ryerson down there, I’m pretty sure he’d be glad to get it. This is their case, so we’ve got to let them have all this.”

  Karen grumbled in disappointment. She had known this was likely going to happen, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She tried weakly to argue for a few minutes, but then picked up the file and went down to where the Cold Case squad kept their offices and asked for Ryerson.

  “Ryerson ain’t here anymore,” she was told by a new detective named Borden. “He got offered some cushy job down in Santa Fe a few weeks ago and split. What’ve you got?”

  Once again, Karen explained the whole story and handed over the file. Borden flipped through it, then turned around and put it under a huge stack of other folders. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll take a look as soon as we get around to it.”

  Karen’s eyes bugged out. “Around to it? This man is a killer, and I just handed you everything you need to put him away.”

  “And we appreciate it. The problem is we got orders from on high that we are supposed to clear the oldest cases first.” He pointed at the stack of folders on his desk. “See those? Some of those go back thirty years. Yours is only ten years old, do the math. It might be a year or two before we get to that case, and there ain’t nothing I can do about it. You want it changed, you go convince the chief to get his head out of his ass, all right?”

  Karen stormed out of the office, but stopped in the doorway to look back at Borden. “This son of a bitch murdered his kids’ mother and one of his own daughters,” she yelled. “Maybe you won’t do anything about him, but I damn sure will. Digger Samara is a despicable parasite, a piece of crap who deserves exactly what his victims got!”

  3

  “Detective Parks,” Karen said as she answered the incoming call. It had been almost two weeks since Melinda had come to see her, and she had all of her sources working on trying to find Digger Samara. Every time the phone rang, a part of her hoped it would be a lead that would help her put him away for good.

  “It’s Snake,” came a voice. Snake was the street name of the guy who ran the Denver Devils, a local street gang that had a tendency to stick to very minor crime. They sold a bit of pot and hustled some black-market liquor, and they could be as tough and violent as any of the other gangs when it came to protecting their turf, but they managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Snake had been providing occasional bits of information to Karen for quite some time. Out of all of her sources, he was undoubtedly the most reliable.

  “Tell me you got something,” she said. “Anything on Samara.”

  “Yeah, well, that could be why I’m calling you. Digger showed up this morning needing a place to stay, rented one of my efficiencies. Him and some other guy, but he said they’ll only be here a few days. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Karen’s eyes swelled wide. “Seriously? Is he there now?”

  “Was twenty minutes ago,” Snake said. “I woulda called sooner, but this was my first chance to be alone.”

  “No problem, I’ll take it. I’ll be down there in twenty minutes.”

  Two years earlier, Snake had found himself with a moderate chunk of cash. Rather than blow it on things that wouldn’t last, he’d surprised Karen by being smart enough to invest in real estate. He had bought himself an apartment building down in LoDo, the lower downtown area that seemed to be a hotbed for gang activity and street crime. He had been tough enough to stake out a territory, and when he started the Devils to help keep the other gangs out, it had actually reduced the crime rate in the city by a good ten percent.

  The rent that he made off the building gave him enough to live on, and he was handy enough to do the repairs himself. Quite a few of his tenants were members of the gang, but as long as they paid their rent on time, he was okay with that. Others were some elderly folk and a few that were handicapped, whose rent was paid by the government and always came in like clockwork. Since he didn’t owe any money on the building, it gave him a decent living.

  It also put him in a position to keep eyes and ears open. Thanks to an early break Karen had given him, Snake was often ready to slip a little information her way.

  She hung up the phone and headed out the door. Karen didn’t have a partner anymore, so she didn’t have to check in with anyone before leaving. If she could bring Samara in, she was quite certain she could bully somebody into letting the prosecution go forward.

  It actually took her slightly less than thirty minutes to get to the building, and there was a crowd milling around in front of it when she got out of the car. It seemed like there was always a crowd out front at this place, and most of them were Devils. None of them were privy to the private arrangement she and Snake had, and they both wanted it that way. The last thing she needed was for Snake to end up dead because one of the rival gangs was afraid of what he might tell her.She pushed her way to the middle of the crowd. “Come on, come on,” she said, “get out of my way. You all know who I am, I’m here on police business.”

  “Yeah?” The man who had spoken was tall and thin, with tattoos all over him. “You think we care?”

  “I think you’ll care if I drag your ass downtown,” Karen said. “Look, I’m not looking for any trouble out of any of you. I’m here for one person, Digger Samara. Where is he at?”

  “What we look like, bitch? You think we look like snitches?” This was from another man, just as tattooed but short and chunky.

  “No, not at all,” Karen said. “You look like prime candidates for an obstructing justice charge. Want me to show you how that works?”

  Somebody bum
ped her from behind, and Karen suddenly found herself up against Snake. She looked up at him, towering over her by almost a foot, and glared. “Oh, geez, are you going to start with me? Get the hell out of my way.”

  Snake stepped back, spreading his hands to show that he was in no way trying to prevent her from proceeding further. The grin on his face was sarcastic, and he kept his eyes directly on her own.

  The crowd suddenly pressed in, and Karen found herself bumping into him once more. This was a game she had played more than once, and was one of the reasons she wore shoes with short, narrow heels. She lifted her right foot just a few inches and then brought it down quickly.

  “Shit,” she heard from behind her, and the press seemed to back off just a bit.

  “Who’s next?” Karen called out. Nobody wanted to volunteer, it seemed, because they stepped back further. “Now, like I said, I’m looking for Digger. I need to talk to him, so where would I find him?”

  “Look up on the fourth floor,” said a feminine voice. There were a few women in the group, but Karen didn’t know any of them. The men close to her were suddenly trying to shush the speaker, but it left a gap in the crowd in front of her. She pushed through it and climbed the steps up to the front door of the building, then headed for the stairwell.

  The building didn’t have a working elevator, though there was a shaft that hadn’t been used in many years. There were six floors in the place, and a number of apartments on each floor. She climbed the four flights at a steady pace, not bothering to hurry. These were the only stairs, so if Samara were to try to make a run for it, he would run right into her.

  She made it up to the fourth floor, where six apartments awaited her. She knocked on the first door she came to, 4A, and it was opened by an elderly woman.

  Karen flashed her badge. “I’m looking for Daniel Samara,” she said. “Would you know which apartment is his?”

  The old woman looked at her with a vacant smile. “Are you Yvonne? Yvonne is my granddaughter. She’s supposed to come visit me today.”

  Karen managed to smile, even though she wanted to scowl. She knew that a few of the tenants here were elderly, and barely able to function on their own. This poor lady seemed to be one of those.

  “No, ma’am,” she said. “Sorry I bothered you.”

  She stepped away and tried the door directly across the hall. When she knocked up this time, it was opened by a blond-haired young man who looked like he spent most of his time working out at the gym.

  She held up her badge. “I’m looking for Digger Samara,” she said. “Is he here?”

  The young man’s eyes narrowed. “Digger? Naw, he ain’t here. He’s down on the second floor, 2C, but are you sure you want to mess with him? I mean, I know you a cop and all, but he’s one mean piece of work.”

  Karen gave him her best shark-tooth grin. “I know who he is,” she said. “And I’m meaner.”

  He started to say something else, but at that moment they both heard three shots ring out. Karen reached for her gun under her jacket, but then she cursed loudly as she ran toward the stairs. The young man watched for a moment, but then an elderly voice from inside drew his attention. He walked back into the apartment, closing the door behind him. The sound of gunshots wasn’t all that uncommon in LoDo.

  Karen raced down two flights and emerged onto the second floor. Some sixth sense had already told her where to look for the source of the gunshots, and the door to apartment 2C was standing open. A man, or rather the body of a man, was laying on the floor some distance inside, and she ran in without stopping to wonder if the killer was still there.

  Damn! she thought. It’s Samara! Indeed, the body on the floor was the right size and the hair was the right color, but it took a bit of reasoning to conclude that it was the man she’d come looking for. He had fallen forward, but his head was turned to his right. That made it possible to see that his face had been blown away.

  There was a lot of blood in two spots on his back. One was a fairly small hole, but the other was much bigger, indicating that it had passed through his body. The mushrooming of the bullet makes a bigger hole on exit than on entry, so the smaller hole was apparently an entry wound. This man had been shot from both directions, but there had been a third shot. There was a small hole just about where his head met his neck, but the mushrooming and pressure of the shot had obliterated his eyes, nose and a good part of his upper palate.

  “Oh, my God,” shouted a female voice, “oh my God, you killed him! Somebody, help, she killed him, she killed him!”

  Karen turned and looked through the doorway. A young woman, obviously close to giving birth, was standing in the hallway just outside the door.

  “No, I just found him like this,” she said, but the girl was still screaming. She was staring at Karen the whole time, and then others were suddenly rushing into the hallway, as well. Men and women came out of other apartments, and a great number of men came rushing in from the stairs.

  Karen saw Snake in the crowd, his eyes wide and staring. She started to get to her feet, but then the sound of sirens tore the air. She stood over the body, and only then thought to look around the apartment.

  There was no one else visible, so she held up her badge and faced the open doorway. “I’m a police detective,” she said. “Police officers are on the way. Everyone please clear the hallway and let them through, but don’t anyone leave. They’ll want to speak to all of you.”

  About half a dozen of them stayed put, but the rest suddenly seemed to want to be somewhere else. There was a mad scramble for the stairs and the majority of the crowd disappeared down them. Snake was one of them, but Karen expected as much. Their friendship, and his occasional assistance, were only valuable as long as no one knew about them.

  It took almost another minute for the first police officers to come up the stairwell. They saw Karen and entered the apartment, listening to her statement about how she had discovered the corpse. As they talked with her, two more officers arrived and began speaking to the people in the hallway.

  Karen managed, with some difficulty, to listen to what was being said out there. The pregnant woman made it clear that she believed Karen had killed Samara, and several of the others began talking like they agreed with her. A couple of them pushed their way into the room, just to try to speak to the officers that were there, but then one of them—a very tall man that Karen knew as Stretch—called out to one of the uniformed patrolmen.

  “Hey, copper,” he said. “Think you might want to see this.” He pointed into a partly open closet, and the officer walked over to see what he was pointing at. At first, he looked confused, but then Stretch told him to look on the shelf above where the hangers bore only a couple of shirts.

  The officer had to stretch up onto tiptoes, but then he took a pair of rubber gloves out of pocket and struggled his hands into them. Karen felt a sinking feeling in her guts as he reached up onto the shelf, and she became actually nauseous when his hand came out with her Smith & Wesson automatic hanging by its trigger guard on his finger.

  “Detective,” the officer said, “is this your weapon?”

  Karen walked over to him and looked closely, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s it,” she said. “As I already told you, I noticed it missing when I heard the shots. It was probably lifted while I was being hassled out front, after I got here.”

  He looked at her, not unkindly, but she spotted the slight hint of doubt. “I’m going to have to take it into evidence,” he said. He held it up close to his face and sniffed, then looked at her again. “It smells like it’s just been fired.”

  “I’m sure it has,” Karen said. “Whoever took it must have had some sort of grudge against Samara. While I was trying to find them, they came straight to his room and killed him.” She glanced out the doorway into the small group that was still looking at her as if she were the killer. “This is starting to feel like a set up.”

  “That’s for somebody above my pay grade to figure out,” the office
r said.

  “Rivers is on the way,” said his partner. “He just called, ought to be here in about five minutes.”

  The first officer nodded, then fumbled in another pocket to pull out a large Ziploc bag. He dropped the gun into it, sealed it shut and used a marker to label it. Gun recovered apartment 2C, Lodestone Apartment Building. He added the date and his own badge number.

  Detective Carl Rivers arrived a few moments later, and walked into the apartment as if he owned the building.

  “What have we got, boys?” Rivers asked.

  “Pretty clear it’s murder,” said the officer who was holding the bagged gun. “Detective Parks was here looking for a suspect in another case, and said she heard gunshots. She says she reached for her weapon at that moment and realized it was missing, then came into the apartment and found this man, Daniel Samara, dead. She stayed here with the body until we arrived to take statements, and then one of the bystanders happened to notice something in that closet. I took a look, and found this weapon. It’s been fired very recently, and Detective Parks identified it as her weapon. She says it was apparently stolen from her a little earlier, when she was having some issues with some of the gang bangers out front.”

  Rivers looked up at her. “Parks? Who were you looking for here?”

  Karen pointed down at the body. “Him. Daniel Samara. I’ve got evidence linking him to a pair of murders from ten years ago, but cold case doesn’t have time to go hunting for him. I got a tip he was here, so I came to try to bring him in.”

  Rivers nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that case. Word is, you got pretty pissed off when cold case said they couldn’t devote any time to it. What was it you said? This guy deserved the kind of treatment he gave his victims?”

  “I was blowing off,” she said. “Geez, Rivers, I’ve been a detective longer than you’ve been on the force. I’m as human as everybody else, you know? This bastard murdered his own wife and cut her up, then killed his little daughter and threw her in a dumpster. You’re damn right I was pissed.”