The Good, The Bad and The Murderous (Sid Chance Myseries Book 2)

by Chester D. Campbell

  While she was relating their problems with Detectives Grimm and Kozlov, the door opened and Fagan and Quarles walked in. Quarles took a seat while Fagan, obviously the lead detective in the case, remained standing.

  He placed a small recording machine on the table and punched a button. After giving the date and circumstances of the interview, he looked at Jaz. “Please state your full name.”

  “Jasmine Rebecca LeMieux.”

  She gritted her teeth and gave the detective a stern look. This was totally ridiculous. It was time to get the situation out in the open and quash this inquisition.

  Fagan opened a folder and looked at something inside. “You told Detective Masterson that you were in the vicinity of Earline Ivey’s house Saturday morning around nine-thirty.”

  “So were several hundred other people,” Jaz said.

  K.C. Urban spoke up. “I’m advising my client to say nothing further until you reveal what evidence led to this charge. If you don’t want to tell us, I’ll go to the District Attorney.”

  Fagan took a photograph out of his folder and dropped it on the table. Jaz and the lawyer leaned toward it. She saw a picture of a latex glove that had been rumpled by wear.

  “Do you know what that is?” the detective asked.

  “Of course,” Jaz said. “It’s a glove similar to what we use, as do you, in gathering evidence at a crime scene.”

  “It is also used by criminals who don’t want to leave fingerprints. This one was found at the back porch of Earline Ivey’s home after her murder.”

  “I was told one had been found there,” Jaz said.

  “But that wasn’t necessary because you already knew. You dropped it there.”

  Jaz’s chest rose as her nostrils flared. “That is the most asinine statement I’ve ever heard.”

  “That glove contains your fingerprints, Miss LeMieux.”

  Chapter 26

  Sid could do nothing but watch as the mob of newsies swarmed Jaz on the sidewalk in front of the Criminal Justice Center. Just before he had to move on, a large man appeared to come to her rescue on the opposite side from Detective Fagan. He presumed it was K.C. Urban, the attorney.

  He had to buck the homebound traffic to find a parking spot in the next block on the opposite side of James Robertson Parkway. He pulled in and checked his watch. The TV people would have just enough time to get their stories in for the evening news. He put a couple of quarters in the meter and got back in the car, uncertain what to do. They would be inside police headquarters by now. If he strode in there and said what he wanted to, he’d likely wind up in jail himself. He decided to call Bart.

  “Masterson,” said the gruff voice. It sounded like he’d been having the same kind of day as Sid and Jaz.

  “It’s Sid. Detectives Fagan and Quarles came out to Jaz’s house and put her under arrest for murder. I’m parked across from headquarters. They just took her in there through a swarm of reporters.”

  “I suspected something like this.”

  “She asked me to call a company lawyer named Urban, who used to practice criminal law. I think he was the guy who intercepted them in front of the building. I don’t know what I can do but sit here and wait.”

  “Nothing you can do, Sid. They’ll question her if the attorney lets them, which he shouldn’t. Then they’ll book her. With her standing in the community, they should bond her out.”

  Sid let down a window as the car began to heat up. “Fagan wouldn’t tell her what evidence they had against her.”

  “I found out,” Bart said. “Remember the latex glove I told you about? The lab lifted her fingerprints from it.”

  “How the hell could—”

  “Only one answer, Sid. She had worn it.”

  “But…” His voice faded away as his brain went into overdrive. They had both worn gloves at the Prime Medical Equipment store Thursday. He had stuffed his in the wastebasket. As he recalled, Jaz had dropped hers in the chair where Valdez-Delgado had been shot. But how could one possibly wind up on Earline Ivey’s back porch?

  “You still there?” Bart asked.

  “Yeah. I’m thinking. Jaz and I discarded latex gloves after we searched through the junk left behind at that medical equipment store. Victor Grimm saw us with them on when he came in. He made some snotty remark about us gumshoes poking around with our rubber gloves.”

  “He left before you did, didn’t he?”

  “Right. We waited there for FBI Agent Eggers.”

  “Grimm is a contentious bastard, but I can’t see him planting evidence like that.”

  “I don’t think I told you what happened Thursday night after the poker game.”

  Sid detailed how Grimm and Kozlov had followed him home, with the burly detective taunting him about the tests that showed Rachel Ransom’s gun had been fired recently. Sid reiterated Mrs. Ransom’s assurance there was no way Djuan could have returned the gun to her cedar chest after his trip to Green Hills, and that it had not been fired since she and her husband came back from California fifteen years ago. He told Bart how Grimm had replied when he said Mrs. Ransom heard Kozlov mention that he could demonstrate how the gun still worked.

  “He said ‘you can’t prove shit’?” Bart asked in disbelief.

  “More to the point, he screamed it. That was proof enough to me that the detectives had fired it before they turned it in as evidence. Of course, he was right. No way could I prove it. But now this glove business comes up.”

  “I see your point, but you have no proof there, either.”

  As Sid thought about what had happened that day in Green Hills, he remembered the call that evening from the florist shop owner. She had seen a man get out of a white Dodge, maybe an Avenger, and go into the Prime Medical Equipment store. He had dismissed it at the time, considering it likely someone from the real estate agency. But considering subsequent events, the white Dodge Avenger gave him a different perspective on the sighting.

  “I just thought of something, Bart,” he said. “There’s a possibility I might come up with the information we need. I’ll let you know if I do.”

  He ended the call and looked up the flower shop phone number in his notebook. He had a good ear for voices and recognized the owner as soon as she answered.

  “This is Sid Chance,” he said. “You called Tuesday night and mentioned seeing a man get out of a white Dodge in front of the former medical supply store. Do you remember anything about how he looked?”

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Chance. You caught me just in time. I was about to lock up. Yes, I remember. I thought it was a bit odd for somebody to be going in there after business hours, so I took a good look at him. He was a short fellow, and when he turned toward me as he went toward the building, I noticed he had a mustache.”

  “Could it be described as a Clark Gable mustache?”

  “Exactly. I hadn’t thought about it, but that’s exactly what it was.”

  “Anything else you can think of, like how he was dressed?”

  She was silent a moment. “Light colored pants and a dark jacket. That’s all I remember.”

  “Thanks very much,” he said, feeling a new surge of hope. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Happy to oblige. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”

  After closing the phone, he faced the question of what now? As he looked across at the brick building where Jaz was being subjected unfairly to a traumatic experience, his mood quickly changed to one of frustration.

  Chapter 27

  After being fingerprinted and run through the booking process, Jaz appeared before a judge, where an assistant DA agreed she should be allowed to post bond and be released. She posed no a threat to the community, nor was she likely to flee. An NAACP lawyer, who had been tipped on what was coming up, objected. He obviously had no idea what Jaz had been involved in lately.

  “Miss LeMieux should be held to the same standard as Djuan Burden, who is now confined to the County Jail,” the lawyer said.

/>   Jaz spoke up before her attorney could stop her. “Your honor, if you’ll set bond for Djuan, I’ll happily bail him out.”

  The judge gave her a judicious frown. “That is not germane to this case, Miss LeMieux. I’m setting your bond at five hundred thousand dollars. You are not to leave this jurisdiction without informing the court.”

  Sid drove over to the building where Arnie Bailey had his office and took the elevator up, hoping Bailey would still be there. He found the small, stocky lawyer talking to the receptionist, who appeared to be cleaning up her desk for the day. Bailey’s face turned grim when he saw Sid.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he asked. “I’ve just been told there was a breaking news report on TV that Jaz was in jail for murder.”

  “I don’t know about the jail part,” Sid said, “but I saw them take her into the Criminal Justice Center. She’s innocent. It’s a big mess. I’ve got to get to the bottom of it. I need to use a computer.”

  “Come on into my office.”

  He led the way down the hall. The room appeared rather small compared to the rest of the Bailey, Riddle and Smith suite. An executive desk with a computer station angled behind it, bookshelves on two walls, a few cushioned chairs. That was it. The desk held neat stacks of papers, the sign of a well-organized mind.

  “What do you need from the computer?” Bailey asked.

  “Channel Five had a follow-up story about Djuan Burden Tuesday night that showed the detectives removing the crime scene tape from the front of Prime Medical Equipment. I need to see if they have the video on their website.”

  “That shouldn’t be too difficult.” He turned to his computer and started punching on the keyboard. After a couple of minutes, he looked around. “Check this out.”

  Sid moved to where he could see the screen. “Okay, start the video.”

  He saw Grimm and Kozlov removing the crime scene tape from Prime Medical just as he remembered. The shorter detective wore light colored pants and a dark jacket, though his Clark Gable mustache didn’t show since his back was turned away from the camera.

  Sid looked back at Bailey. “We’ve got a problem and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Sid gave him the whole story, from his belief that the detectives had fired Rachel Ransom’s gun to the latex glove found at the Earline Ivey murder scene.

  “The problem is I have no proof that any of it happened.”

  “Do you think this florist lady could identify Ramsey Kozlov?”

  “I could ask her, but that would only give us a circumstantial case. There’s no way to show what he did in the medical supply store. I might check with whoever cleaned out the place, see if they remember seeing the gloves in the chair. But there, again, it’s only circumstantial.”

  Arnie Bailey could only shake his head.

  Sid’s phone rang and he saw Jaz’s number on the screen. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No, but I’m not in jail. Where are you?”

  “At Arnie Bailey’s office.”

  “Can you pick me up and take me home?” Her voice sounded strong, though it held a definite weariness.

  “At the Criminal Justice Center?”

  “No, at Welcome Home Stores. K.C. Urban brought me over here. I’ll tell you what happened when you get here.”

  Jaques LeMieux had served in the Korean War with a Canadian Army unit involved in vehicle maintenance. His knowledge of trucks and how to maintain them impressed an American Army officer who invited him to visit Nashville after the war. The young man’s father operated a truck sales franchise. When Jaz’s father visited him, he talked LeMieux into going into business with him in a service station that would cater to over-the-road truckers. Jaques came up with a succession of improvements in the business, plus he saw a great future with the new interstate highway system under way. After a few years, he bought out his partner and launched an expansion campaign. It resulted in the far-flung network of travel centers now headquartered in a five-story building out West End Avenue.

  Sid parked in a visitor slot behind the impressive brick and stone structure and followed signs to the reception area. He had never visited Welcome Home Stores before. After getting directions from a security guard, who called to make sure he was expected, he took an elevator to the top floor where the chairman’s office was located. An attractive young redhead with “Administrative Assistant” on her desk greeted him when he entered the suite.

  “You must be Mr. Chance,” she said, making a show of looking slowly up to his face.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Has my reputation preceded me?”

  “You’re very well thought of around here. Go on in. Miss LeMieux is waiting for you.”

  The door to Jaz’s office was half-open, but he knocked before entering. The room was almost a mirror image of her office at home, complete to the bookshelves around the walls. It had obviously been created by her father. She sat in a chair next to the large man with the burr haircut he had seen outside police headquarters.

  “K.C. Urban, Sid Chance,” Jaz said as the two men shook hands.

  Sid took the chair across from them. “Bart told me about the fingerprints on the glove. What happened?”

  Jaz briefed him on the session with the detectives and the bond hearing. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “I could say don’t worry, but that would be a little premature. I’m almost certain I know what happened. Proving it is something else. The glove was one you wore while we searched Prime Medical Equipment last Tuesday.”

  Jaz perked up when he told them what the florist shop owner had seen in front of the store and how he had verified Ramsey Kozlov’s description with the Channel Five video.

  “It might be enough to create a reasonable doubt if the woman could identify Kozlov,” Urban said. “But he would probably claim he was there to continue his investigation.”

  “Did Jaz tell you what we suspect about Kozlov and Detective Grimm in the Djuan Burden murder investigation,” Sid asked.

  “Yes, and it sounds like a similar situation. But you have to realize that what seems obvious to you might not be so obvious to a jury.”

  Jaz gave Sid a wistful look. “This is the point in the story where you’re supposed to reach into your hat and pull out a live, kicking bunny.”

  Sid stared at his folded hands. His bag of tricks had just hit empty.

  Chapter 28

  During the drive to Jaz’s house, they talked about where things stood on both fronts, the Djuan Burden case and Earline Ivey’s murder. After going over the slaying of Omar Valdez, a.k.a. Estefan Perez Delgado, Sid twisted his mouth in frustration.

  “I’m certain that hired killer did it,” he said.

  Jaz stared at the road ahead as if looking for answers, then turned back to Sid. “But it’s all circumstantial and we have no hired killer.”

  “I’d bet my last buck Earline Ivey was also the victim of a hired killer, maybe even the same one.”

  “How do you figure that? What’s the connection?”

  “Who do we know that’s linked to both cases?”

  She massaged her forehead gently, then looked back. “Detectives Grimm and Kozlov?”

  “Victor Grimm hasn’t poked his ugly head into the Ivey case that I know of. The same can’t be said with any certainty about Ramsey Kozlov. He was alone when the florist saw him enter the Prime Medical building last Thursday.”

  “Surely you’re not saying he hired her killer.”

  “I don’t know. But think about it this way—he accused you of interfering in their homicide case when he stopped you outside that apartment on Granny White. You posed a high profile target. Plus the racial slur accusations made you vulnerable.”

  Jaz paused a moment. “He warned me to stay out of the way if I didn’t want to get hurt. But what would he gain by getting me charged with a murder? He knew we couldn’t prove they’d fired that gun.”

  “Did he know we were onto t
he hit man’s trail?”

  “I suppose he could have. Several people knew about it. Hattie Jordan, of course, Reagan Abrams, Bart and Wick. I’m not sure who else. What if Kozlov knew?”

  “I’m just speculating. He could have figured we were getting too close to exposing what he’d done. Taking you out of the picture would interrupt our investigation.”

  “Has it?”

  “I didn’t even think about the Burden case when I was at Arnie Bailey’s office, and that’s where his lawyers are.”

  Jaz took a deep breath and shook her head. “Is there any other possible way that glove could have wound up on Earline Ivey’s porch?”

  “I can’t think of any. It had to have been left there by the killer or by someone after the murder. If Kozlov took the glove from the Green Hills store, he either gave it to the killer or left it himself. Either way, he had to know what was happening.”

  “I’m totally confused,” Jaz said. “Killing that woman just to get at me makes no sense. I guess I just don’t think like a criminal.”

  “You didn’t spend enough time on the force to get your brain twisted into a criminal mindset.”

  The gloomy skies turned black before they reached Jaz’s house. Floodlights at the corners bathed the sprawling mansion in a ghostly glow. She invited Sid to come in, and he thought it best to stay with her for a while. They ate dinner with Marie and John Wallace. Jaz spoke candidly about what had happened, which only confirmed what the Wallaces had seen on the TV news.

  “We know where the glove came from,” Jaz said. “It was one I had used last Tuesday when Sid and I searched the former Prime Medical Equipment store. We just don’t know how it came to be found on Earline Ivey’s back porch.”

  “I don’t how anybody could think you’d do something like this,” Marie said, shaking her head.

  “We’re going to find who’s responsible,” Sid said. “That’s my primary mission until I can dredge up the answer.”

  Sid arrived home shortly before ten. Considering how much he knew about Ramsey Kozlov, plus what he suspected, and remembering the call he’d received Sunday night, he checked carefully for any sign of tampering at his house. He felt the comforting bulk of the .40 caliber Sig Sauer on his hip, similar to the gun he had carried as a National Park ranger. It remained there during risky cases, which this one had clearly become.