Fractured Justice

by James A. Ardaiz

  Puccinelli had held back long enough. “You and I both know she didn’t shoot him. Whoever did was an expert with a handgun. There’s only one person I know who carries a Walther .380 and can use it that well. Where’s O’Hara?” Puccinelli waited. Ernie’s silence confirmed his suspicion. “Have you asked O’Hara?”

  Before giving an answer Ernie hesitated and seemed to focus on some nonexistent spot over Pooch’s head. “I’m not going to ask until I know the rest of the answers.” And with that point emphasized, Ernie walked out the door without any further comment.

  By midday, Puccinelli had the warrant for Garrett’s car and was on his way to the fenced area next to the forensic lab. The car St. Claire had been driving the night before, a black Ford Crown Victoria, sat in the enclosed area. He walked over to the gate in the fence that surrounded the area. There were two other vehicles in there also. One was Garrett’s. The other was St. Claire’s Lexus, still unreleased even though McGuiness had been demanding it after the trial. They had hoped they could stall and not release it until after the murders were resolved. That certainly looked like a dead end now.

  Charlie Faxon, a forensic tech, was waiting with the keys. He unlocked the gate and followed Puccinelli inside. Faxon handed Puccinelli a set of latex gloves to wear during the examination of the Crown Victoria. Charlie looked the large sedan over, observing, “It looks just like your duty car, Pooch. Or like one of the cars that the highway patrol drives.”

  Puccinelli acknowledged that Charlie was right. It looked just like one he drove himself except that his was white and highway patrol cars didn’t have white door panels and a front license plate. So the thought occurred to him that if this was the car St. Claire used with Garrett or the others it might explain why they mistook it for a police car. But they had run a registration check on St. Claire and the only car that had shown up was the Lexus. So this was something unexpected. Maybe St. Claire always used a rental. He would see.

  Puccinelli opened the door and did a quick visual search. There wasn’t anything clearly visible. The car was very neat. He lifted the center console. There were what looked like bills. He shuffled through them. Several appeared to be tax assessor bills from the look of them as well as some utility bills. The obvious thought struck him that even people like St. Claire had to pay taxes—well, not anymore.

  The glove box was clean, with current registration and insurance papers. Nothing else. Puccinelli looked at the vehicle registration. It was held in the name of something called the St. Claire Trust and the address was to a post office box. That explained why they hadn’t picked it up when they did a registration check and found only one, the Lexus owned by St. Claire, under his name. Puccinelli sucked in his breath hard. “What the hell is the St. Claire Trust?”

  He slid his hand under the seats. Nothing. Puccinelli pulled his body back out of the car and handed the keys to Faxon. “Charlie, open the trunk, will you?” He handed over the bundle of bills and the registration. “Bag these up. Have the forensic boys go over the car with a fine-tooth comb.”

  The trunk was just as clean as the car. Puccinelli pulled up the mat covering the spare tire, his gaze moving across the jack and lug wrench before he stopped. He turned to Faxon. “You see that? What’s that?”

  Faxon leaned into the trunk, keeping his hands at his sides to avoid touching anything unnecessarily. “It looks like an aerosol can for spray paint. But what’s that thing on top?”

  It looked to Puccinelli like the top had a rubber cup on it. When he got closer to it, he saw that it wasn’t a cup. It looked more like one of those little masks that doctors put over their faces in surgery, only this one was rubber or plastic. He looked up at Faxon. “Do you know what this is?”

  Faxon peered over Puccinelli’s shoulder. “I don’t, but whatever it is, it doesn’t belong here.” There were no markings on the can but when Puccinelli looked at it more closely it looked heavier, sturdier than a normal aerosol can. He told the tech, “Take some pictures of it. Bag it up also. Be careful with it. I want to see if we can get any prints off of it.” He straightened back up. “Get me the pictures as soon as you can, Charlie. I want to show them to Gupta.”

  He had a feeling. Maybe Gupta would know what it was. Maybe it was nothing, but it didn’t look like nothing. He pulled the trunk carpet farther back. There were black leather gloves and a box of latex gloves next to a light with a power cord that would go into a cigarette lighter. The light was just a droplight that you could buy at any hardware or automotive store except for one small change. The light had a red bulb. As it often turned out, the simplest explanation was usually the correct one. St. Claire could plug in the light and at night it would look like a red light. Ernie had guessed right when he testified at the trial. They just didn’t have the right car. Nobody would question it because once people saw the red light they believed a cop was behind them. People didn’t look at details. “Photograph it and check it for prints.” He pulled out his phone to call Ernie.

  Minutes later Ernie arrived to begin their search of Garrett’s car in the impound lot. The discovery of the red light would help them close the case on St. Claire but it wouldn’t help answer all the questions they both still had. Ernie said, “You got the warrant?”

  Puccinelli held up the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Yeah, I went to the trial judge. Figured that would be fastest. Judge Wallace just flipped through the pages, looked up at me, and signed it. Never asked a question, just shook his head. So let’s start digging.”

  After Ernie dropped him at the DA’s office, Jamison had tried to work. It had been all Jamison could do not to lose his focus. He’d learned that O’Hara had called the front desk saying he was taking some vacation time. Jamison had left multiple messages on O’Hara’s phone, but nothing had been returned and now Ernie was treating him like a mushroom too, keeping him in the dark and feeding him bullshit. He decided to go check on Garrett to keep his mind off of his deepening concerns, and his mind off of what he might do if he actually knew the truth.

  Jamison sat at the kitchen table of the Garrett home, watching as Beth’s mother moved around making coffee. Beth was resting. The strain of the trial and now St. Claire’s killing had taken a lot out of her. It would take a lot out of anybody. He felt guilty about doubting her pleas to believe her. St. Claire had come after her again. At this point the question was who had stopped St. Claire?

  On his way over to Beth’s, Jamison had replayed their conversation at her school before the shooting again and again in his mind. He had tried to be impersonal but it had been very personal. He hadn’t spoken to her again until St. Claire’s shooting. When he thought carefully about it, he knew that just as he had argued in court, everything Elizabeth said was possible, including her explanation about the photograph he had argued was taken from a distance. He also knew better than anybody that some of the things St. Claire used to prove she was a liar were themselves shown to be a lie. But one thing clearly wasn’t a lie. St. Claire had returned and gone after her, in a darkened parking lot long after her work day had ended.

  Ann Garrett moved with the practiced grace of someone who could close her eyes and still find everything in her kitchen. There were still questions, little things that nagged at Jamison for reasons only his subconscious might understand. He hadn’t stopped thinking about what McGuiness had told Ernie about digging into who Bobby Allison was. Everything had happened so fast at the trial he hadn’t questioned Beth’s explanation. It had appeared at the time to be just one more suspect piece of evidence ginned up by St. Claire. But he didn’t really think Tom McGuiness would have passed that on to Ernie for no reason, especially now that St. Claire was dead. While he didn’t want to, Jamison planned to call McGuiness later in the day and see what he was talking about. But for now he decided he would ask Ann Garrett. If anyone would know who Allison was it was going to be her.

  “So, Mrs. Garrett, does Beth ever hear from this former college boyfriend of hers, Robert Allison? Bobby Al
lison?”

  Mrs. Garrett turned with a startled expression. “Who?”

  “Robert Allison. I was wondering, is this guy still around?” Jamison smiled, hoping he had asked the question in a way that didn’t seem like more than idle curiosity. He realized that neither the mother nor the father were likely to know about the name coming up during the trial because as witnesses they weren’t permitted to be present during the testimony.

  Ann Garrett shook her head. She looked like she might say something and then shook her head again. “That can’t be right. You must be mistaken.” She hesitated. “You should ask Elizabeth.” Mrs. Garrett turned back toward the coffee maker and picked up a cup. Whatever she thought about saying, Jamison could tell she wanted to keep it to herself.

  He got up from the table. His stomach was churning. “Mrs. Garrett, please tell Beth I was here. I need to get back to the office.” There was something about the reaction of Beth’s mother that told him he really needed to find out the answer to his question. But clearly it wasn’t going to come from her, or from Beth either. The next question was why?

  Chapter 42

  Puccinelli and Ernie didn’t want to tear Beth Garrett’s car apart. Uncertain about what they were looking for, they quickly realized nothing was inside that didn’t belong there—some clothes in an overnight bag and a few other personal items, nothing out of the ordinary.

  While they searched her car they talked about finding the light and the aerosol can. Ernie was thoughtful. “I don’t know. St. Claire was obsessed with her. Finding that light helps explain what she said happened.” Ernie pulled at the trunk carpet to check the compartment where the spare was. A brown manila packet was slid into the tire well next to the tire.

  Ernie lifted the packet out. He shuffled through the photographs it contained, holding them where Puccinelli could see. There were photographs from what looked like high school and some of Elizabeth and St. Claire. Puccinelli asked, “Why would she have any photographs of that asshole now?”

  Ernie looked at each one individually. He studied several before he slid them back into the plastic packet. “Let me take the photographs. I want to take a closer look at them. Maybe it’ll trigger something.” Pooch looked dubious about releasing evidence. Ernie gave him a lopsided grin. “Hey, don’t worry about it. St. Claire’s dead and whoever shot him sure wasn’t looking for anything else. I’ll take care of them.”

  Puccinelli stood there watching Ernie, waiting for him to say something. Both of them knew that whatever was said at this point would take them down a road neither wanted to travel. Who the shooter was still had to be resolved. Pooch finally spit it out. “Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass about St. Claire, but O’Hara’s another story.”

  Ernie’s face was a blank. Puccinelli could tell there was no way Ernie would offer anything up without a direct question.

  Finally, Puccinelli decided to ask it. “O’Hara was out there wasn’t he?”

  Ernie bit his lip, struggling to come up with an answer. “If he was, then you know it was to make sure nothing happened to Garrett.”

  He hesitated but Pooch had to ask. “If he was out there, would anybody else know?”

  “Only me. He would tell me.” Pooch didn’t ask if O’Hara had told him.

  Ernie avoided Puccinelli’s gaze and looked at the pictures before he blurted out his thoughts, his voice raised in frustration. “That bastard got what he deserved. Maybe they thought they were saving her. Maybe they didn’t. Either way, if they made a mistake, it would be a real screwed-up system if it meant that a good man would go down for killing a bad man a second too soon. Right?”

  Silent for a moment while he mulled over the answer, it didn’t take Puccinelli long to make a decision. “Good enough for me.”

  So there it was. They had forged an unspoken decision. There would be consequences, including some they knew they couldn’t predict. Ernie felt like he could ask because they both needed to know. “Are there any prints on those shell casings?”

  Puccinelli shook his head slowly. “There looks like maybe a partial print.” It all depended on how the person had pushed the shell into the magazine of the weapon. He had looked at it already and caught the faint outlines of a partial print.

  Puccinelli thought for a moment about what it would mean if O’Hara’s prints were identified on the casing. He still had control of the casings. The answer came to him quickly. “I think I may have screwed up with the casings. Hey, shit happens. It’s not like anybody really wants to find out who shot St. Claire.”

  Ernie nodded. Somehow the casings, or at least the one with the print, would get misplaced. He didn’t need to hear anything else. “Somebody’s got to talk to Jamison.”

  “He’s your boy. You talk to him.”

  As he walked back into the forensic lab, Puccinelli saw Charlie Faxon, the forensic tech who had helped process St. Claire’s car and was working on the crime scene evidence, including the spent casings from the parking lot. “I need to see those shell casings.” Earlier he had told forensics to hold off on processing what looked like a partial print on the brass of one casing with enough print ridges and lines to possibly make a positive print and maybe not. Faxon shrugged and handed over the sealed plastic bag, the brass casings glinting in the fluorescent lights of the lab. “What do you need them for?”

  “The DA investigator wants to see them. I’ll have them back within an hour.” He looked down at the evidence seal. His initials were on it but so were the technicians. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. When I get back you can run the prints.”

  “Nothing more to do.” Faxon gave Puccinelli a knowing look. “I saw a partial and ran it. I saw that you wanted to hold up but I had the time and figured you just wanted to make sure we got to other stuff first.” He held up the bag, the tarnished brass casings glinting inside the plastic evidence bag. “Tell O’Hara he needs to be more careful.”

  Puccinelli could feel a cold lump in his stomach. He forced himself to appear uninterested. “Why?”

  “Because O’Hara screwed up at the crime scene. That partial is his, or I should say there are enough points of comparison on it that it fits his print, not enough to say absolutely, but who the hell else could it be? I couldn’t believe that when the print came up. You guys know better than that. Why didn’t he have gloves on?”

  Puccinelli felt the tension diminish. Now he realized Faxon thought O’Hara had been working at the crime scene and picked up a casing without gloves on. That was how Faxon assumed O’Hara’s print had gotten on the casing. Puccinelli’s mind raced through the crime scene facts. It was an explanation that might work. Now that O’Hara’s print had been identified, it would have to work. He could feel his heart thumping. “I don’t know. He knows better.” He paused, almost afraid to ask. “There were no other prints on the casings?”

  “Nothing. No DNA either. So maybe it won’t make any difference but he needs to be more careful. He really could have screwed up a piece of evidence.”

  “Look, you keep this.” Puccinelli handed the bag back. “No reason to take this over to the DA’s office and let them screw it up more.” He kept his voice as steady as he could. “Just give me the report as soon as you have it. Don’t have it typed, just your written memo will be sufficient.”

  Faxon smiled and shook his head again. “Okay, not to worry. I’ve known O’Hara a long time. He’s a good guy. Don’t want to get him in trouble for being so sloppy. Besides, everything else was clean. Here’s my copy of the report but you know I have to put it in the file, right? I can’t help that. Any leads yet on the shooter? Whoever he was did the world a good turn.”

  Pooch knew that Faxon, like most forensic technicians, never got to be in on the flashy points of the investigations he worked on, crashing doors or making arrests in cases. But he did like having inside information.

  Puccinelli took the sheet of paper and quickly scanned it. “No, nothing yet. You do what you have to do and I’ll make sure O’Ha
ra hears about it. I’ll also tell him that he owes you a couple of beers.” He walked outside and pulled out his cell phone to call Ernie. He was about to cross another line.

  “Can you talk?” Pooch could hear muffled voices and a door closing.

  “I can talk now. I’ve been thinking about the casings. If they haven’t run the print.”

  Puccinelli broke in. “One of our guys already ran it. They picked up a partial, not enough to positively make it but enough so it’s consistent with a known.” Puccinelli tried to keep his voice free of emotion. “It’s O’Hara’s.”

  Ernie was silent for a few seconds. “So the crime tech knows its O’Hara’s? What’d he say?”

  “He thinks O’Hara was at the crime scene and screwed up the casing by picking it up. He’s making a report. He doesn’t want O’Hara to get into trouble, but it will be in the report. Nothing I can do about it.” Puccinelli paused. “That report’s going to show up. When it does, maybe the sergeant or the lieutenant who reviews it won’t jump to the conclusion that O’Hara was the shooter, but a lot of people know Bill carried a Walther.”

  For a few seconds Ernie said nothing. “I’ll get back to you. Give me a couple of hours.”

  “To do what?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Look, Pooch, if anybody asks before I get back to you, tell them O’Hara should have known better and you aren’t going to cover his ass. Don’t say anything else. Just that. Okay? Say that. I’ll be back to you.”

  Ernie disconnected and sat back in his chair. There was a crime scene log that documented all the people inside the yellow tape of the crime scene as well as reports of all people handling evidence. O’Hara’s name wasn’t on it, but there were a lot of people out there. Ernie thought about it. Maybe they should just let people think O’Hara really screwed up? Not that he killed St. Claire, but maybe he didn’t sign the crime scene log? It might work. It had better. Ernie reached for his report forms. Maybe I haven’t finished my reports. He thought about it. Yes, I need to do that.