Beneath the Depths

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  “You remember about what time this happened?”

  “Don’t own a watch, Sarge. Late. After eleven. Midnight, maybe.” He paused a minute, then looked at Byron. The fear had returned to his eyes. “Someone murdered the guy who owned that SUV, the lawyer.”

  “Ramsey? Yes. How did you know it was his SUV?”

  “Big story about him found dead in the paper. I’ve been checking every day since. That’s how I found out it was his SUV I saw the woman dump near my camp. Newspaper had a picture of it and you were there.”

  “You got a subscription?” Byron asked, kidding.

  “Don’t need one. Just grab ’em out of the Dumpsters. I like the puzzles.”

  Timmons transported them back to 109. Byron turned Glantz over to Nugent for a recorded interview. Timmons was still pouting. Byron pulled him aside.

  “Still don’t get it, do you?” Byron asked the rookie.

  “He’s a bum who happened to see something. What’s the big deal?”

  “First off, Officer Timmons, that bum did two tours overseas during the first Gulf War. He actually served his country. Winn’s seen more death than you’ll ever know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not me you should be apologizing to. I’ve solved more crimes over the years than you could imagine talking to guys just like him. Nobody even notices people like Winn. They hide in plain sight and they see everything. If you’re ever gonna make it on this job, you’d do well to remember that.”

  Byron found Diane in the conference room with Stevens, watching Nugent’s interview on the monitor.

  “Ramsey wasn’t shot on Veranda Street,” Byron said.

  “How do you know?” Diane asked.

  “That guy in there with Nuge is an old snitch of mine, Erwin Glantz. He saw a woman drive Ramsey’s SUV to the place it was dumped. A blonde woman. She was alone.”

  “Fuck,” Stevens said. “So Ramsey may have been killed on the boat?”

  “Did we find anyone at the marina who remembered hearing Ramsey’s boat leave the dock the night he was killed?” Byron asked.

  Diane shook her head. “No, and we spoke with all of them.”

  “But I got the distinct impression that some of them wouldn’t have told us either way,” Stevens said.

  Byron looked at Diane. “Let’s take a ride. I need something to eat.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Wednesday, 3:25 p.m., May 4, 2016

  Davis Billingslea sat in his cubicle banging away on the keyboard like a madman. He was putting the finishing touches on the Ramsey update. Prominent Local Attorney Charged in Ramsey Homicide. Billingslea was on top of the world. Half of it was due to the Ramsey story. Thanks to Detective Joyner, he’d finally been the first to break a major story. After Diane’s call, he’d been the first to tweet the arrest. He’d even posted the teaser update to the Herald’s webpage along with a cellphone pic of the powerful attorney being led out of his building in cuffs. A picture he had snapped. His bosses were elated. This was his fifteen minutes. And, Warhol be damned, he was going to do his best to make it thirty. But his newfound celebrity wasn’t the only thing making him feel this way. Amy Brennan was infecting his every thought. She was absolutely stunning, by far the most attractive girl he’d even been out with. Hell, if he was being honest, she was the prettiest girl who’d ever shown any interest in him. He’d had to blow off their date the night before because of the Branch story, but he’d promised to make it up to her. He glanced at his desk clock—3:25. She’d asked that he not phone her while she was at work, but he had to. He was bursting. He rolled out of his cubicle and checked the work spaces on either side. Empty. He hit the speed dial for her cell then waited anxiously as it rang.

  “Hello?”

  Just the sound of her voice made his heart race.

  “Amy. It’s Davis.”

  “Oh, hey.”

  She sounded funny. Was she pissed at him about last night? She hadn’t let on that it bothered her.

  “I’m sorry for calling you at work but I’ve got some unbelievable news. Besides, I felt bad about canceling our date. I want to make it up to you. Take you someplace really nice tonight.”

  “Um, Davis, I’ve been thinking. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to keep seeing each other.”

  “Wh-what?” The words caught in his throat. “Why not?”

  “The police just arrested my boss and, because of you, I helped them do it.”

  He was stunned. “But your boss killed Paul Ramsey. He needed to be locked up, Amy. This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Or us.”

  “I’m sorry, Davis. You’re sweet. But I just can’t.”

  He was speechless.

  “Take care of yourself,” she said before hanging up.

  Billingslea stared down at his cellphone. The picture of Amy that he’d added to his contacts disappeared as the call was disconnected, replaced by a Beyoncé screensaver. What had just happened? It had never occurred to him that involving Amy in the story would be a problem. But in a matter of minutes he’d fallen off his newfound life high to a depth he’d never imagined.

  “Davis!” Draper hollered from somewhere across the newsroom. “How much longer before that story’s done?”

  “I—I’m almost finished,” he lied. The truth was, he didn’t feel like finishing the story. He’d been looking forward to a festive evening with Amy. Hoping for more than just a dismissive kiss on the cheek. Maybe even a sleepover. Now he was doomed to spend another evening eating leftover pizza snuggled up with Simba. And his Siamese roommate was a poor substitute for Amy.

  “Four o’clock, Davis,” Draper called over. “On my desk.”

  “Got it,” he said, projecting zero enthusiasm. He placed the cellphone on his desk and resumed typing. Slowly.

  Byron and Diane grabbed takeout at the Burger King on Forest Avenue. While they ate, he filled her in on the latest information from DeWitt.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?” Diane asked.

  “I think he is. Of course the information he’s providing still doesn’t get Branch off the hook. We’re gonna need more.”

  Byron’s cell rang. “Byron,” he answered.

  “Hey, Sarge,” Tran said. “You in the building?”

  “No. But I can be. You got something?”

  “I think so, Number One.”

  “I’ll be right in.”

  Byron and Diane drove back to 109 then ascended the stairs to the third floor. Tran, dressed in an outrageously loud pink and gold Hawaiian shirt, was waiting for them.

  “What’s up?” Byron asked.

  “Well, I’ve been working some of my tech magic on the list of employees from the law firm of Newman, Branch & DeWitt that you gave me and I think I may have found something.”

  “This more of that stuff we don’t want to know about?” Diane asked.

  Tran fixed her with a sideways grin. “Kind of hard to answer if you don’t want to know.”

  “These are lawyers we’re fucking with, Dustin,” Byron said. “We don’t want to get caught with our pants down.”

  “Fear not, Striped One. My data mining friend leaves zero trace. This can’t be used—it’s just to give you guys an edge.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay. So I took the phone numbers from each of the firm’s employees looking for patterns. Who’s calling who and how often.”

  “Not the landlines, I hope.”

  “No way. I’m not totally crazy.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “Using the cellphone numbers provided, I looked at time of day, frequency of calls, both to and from, that kind of thing.”

  “Using numbers from every single employee at the firm? That’s a lot of data.”

  “Yeah, I quickly discovered that. Diane helped me compile a short list of principals. The senior partners, Ramsey, Davies, and a few others along with the
ir assistants.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I found something kinda weird when I looked at Davies’s number and the number for her assistant, Amy Brennan. They call each other quite a bit. With the majority of the calls coming after five o’clock at night.”

  “How frequently?” Diane asked.

  “They average about thirty calls a week.”

  “That a lot?” Byron asked.

  Tran shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. I’m just glad my boss doesn’t call me that much during my time off.”

  “Point taken. So they work a lot of hours—not sure that’s big news, Dustin.”

  Tran shook his head. “That’s not the news. About a month before Ramsey’s murder some weird stuff started happening. First, the calls between Davies’s and Brennan’s cells dropped by seventy-five percent.”

  “Maybe they weren’t as busy,” Byron said. “Or maybe one of them was on vacation.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. I found that Brennan’s cell was in contact with a new number not on the list.” Tran pointed at the number on the screen.

  “Do you know whose number it is?” Byron asked.

  “Nothing listed. My tech buddy says it’s a TracFone. Untraceable.”

  “Like the drug dealers use,” Diane said.

  “Yup, and terrorists and anyone else who wants anonymity. Activated at the same time Davies’s and Brennan’s call volume dropped off.”

  “How many times was Brennan’s cell in contact with the TracFone?” Byron asked.

  “Just a couple of times.”

  Byron took a moment to process what Tran was telling him. “Do any of the other employees of the firm call the new number or receive calls from it?”

  “Nope.”

  “So you think Davies may have purchased a throwaway?” Diane asked.

  “That’d be my guess.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Know what else is interesting?”

  “What?” Byron asked.

  “The calls between Davies and Ramsey stopped at about the same time.”

  “Nice work,” Byron said, putting a hand on Tran’s shoulder.

  Tran’s face lit up with pride. “Thanks, Striped Dude.”

  They were turning to leave when Tran stopped them.

  “One more thing. I found another number, one you might recognize, in repeated contact with Brennan’s phone. And vice versa.”

  “Someone else from the firm?”

  “Nope. Ran the number through HTE. It belongs to Billingslea. Looks like Ms. Brennan’s been talking out of school with Davis Billingslea, reporter extraordinaire for the Portland Herald.”

  Byron paused in the doorway, thinking it through. Was Amy Brennan playing both sides? Talking to the press while feeding info to the investigators?

  “When did those calls start, Dustin?” Diane asked.

  “About three weeks ago.”

  “Speaking of phones,” Byron said, pulling out his notebook. “I’ve got another one I need you to check out for me.” He copied the number onto a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Tran. “I need a printout of all incoming and outgoing calls for this number on the night Ramsey was killed. As soon as possible.”

  “Is this someone’s cell?

  “No, it’s a public pay phone.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Byron paced the length of the conference room while Diane and the other detectives sat at the table analyzing the board and slinging around ideas. He’d called the meeting to discuss the direction the investigation needed to go while he connected the dots swirling in his own head.

  “But ballistics confirm it was the gun we took off Branch,” Nugent said. “So, what else are we looking for?”

  “His accomplice,” Stevens said. “A woman dumped Ramsey’s car on Veranda, then walked away.”

  “He’s still the shooter though, right?” Nugent asked. “I mean, Ramsey was putting the boots to his wife. Makes sense that Branch would be the one to shoot him.”

  “He’s too smart to shoot two people, then keep the gun,” Byron said.

  “I don’t know, Sarge,” Nugent said. “Jealousy can make even smart guys dumb. Maybe he was so pissed about Ramsey shagging his wife that he just lost his shit. Wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “One problem with your theory, Nuge,” Diane said. “If Branch was acting impulsively, why would he report the gun stolen from his house a month before killing Ramsey?”

  Amazingly, Nugent had nothing witty to say.

  “Diane’s right,” Stevens said. “Staging a break-in to make it look like someone else had the gun took a lot of thought. It would mean that Branch preplanned this whole thing. Nothing impulsive about that.”

  “And why didn’t we find prints on the gun?” Byron asked.

  “That is kind of fucked up,” Pelligrosso said. “There were no gloves found in his car. Why wipe your prints off a murder weapon if you’re just gonna hang on to it? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “No,” Byron said. “It doesn’t.”

  “Maybe he didn’t plan on getting pulled over and arrested,” Stevens said.

  “Normally, I’d say you were right,” Diane said. “Problem is, he had to know the police would be looking for him. He’d just punched out his wife.”

  “Unless he didn’t,” Byron said, stopping abruptly in mid-pace.

  “I’m not following,” Diane said. “We have a witness.”

  “Yeah,” Nugent said. “Amy Brennan. She was there when Branch showed up all pissed off, remember?”

  “It’s in her statement, Sarge,” Stevens said, flipping open one of the file folders and removing a piece of paper. “It’s right here. Says she was in the condo when Devon Branch arrived.”

  “Did Brennan tell us Branch was expected?” Byron asked.

  Stevens scanned quickly through the document while they waited. “Doesn’t say. Why?”

  Byron turned to Diane. “What did Lorraine Davies say about that? Did she know her husband was stopping by?”

  Diane shook her head. “No. Said he came by unannounced.”

  Byron looked at Stevens. “Mel, check through Branch’s cell records. I want to know if he received or made any calls just prior to going to see Davies.”

  “I got the printout right here,” Stevens said. “Hang on a sec.”

  “What are you getting at, John?” Diane asked.

  “The security guard at Davies’s building said Davies got regular visits from Brennan and for a couple of months she also had visits from Ramsey.”

  Nugent grinned. “The Ramsey visits were what kids nowadays refer to as a booty call.”

  “And?” Diane said, ignoring Nugent.

  “And,” Byron said, “he never saw Branch stop by. Not once.”

  “Here it is,” Stevens said, sounding excited. “About twenty minutes before Davies said she was assaulted by Branch, the cell records show an incoming call to Branch from Davies’s cell.”

  “So?” Diane said.

  “So, why didn’t she mention it?” Byron said. “She told the officers that he showed up unannounced. Why didn’t she mention calling him?”

  “Probably didn’t think it mattered,” Nugent said.

  “Or she didn’t want us to know that she’d asked him to come,” Byron said.

  “Why?” Nugent said.

  “Maybe to set him up for the assault,” Stevens said.

  “You’re thinking what, Sarge?” Nugent said. “That she intentionally said something to set him off so he’d drive over and assault her?”

  “Or, maybe, he never touched her,” Byron said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms across his chest. “What if the call was just a ruse to get him to her condo?”

  “She had a bruised eye, John,” Diane said, pulling out a plastic viewing sheet of the photos Pelligrosso had taken.

  “Doesn’t mean it was Branch who hit her,” Byron said.

  Byron waited as the group thought it through.
/>   Diane spoke up first. “You’re suggesting Davies did that to herself?”

  “Or she had Brennan do it,” Stevens said.

  “Brennan?” Diane said. “Why Brennan?”

  “What if Amy Brennan is more than Davies’s personal assistant?” Stevens said.

  “You think Brennan’s visits were booty calls, too?” Nugent said, smirking.

  “Why not?” Byron said. “Mel said she got that vibe off Brennan.”

  “My gay-dar,” Stevens said. “That, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before at one of the local clubs. More than once.”

  “Okay,” Diane said. “So what are you suggesting? That Brennan and Davies set Branch up for the domestic assault charge?”

  “Why not the murder too?” Byron said. “Plant the gun in his car where the police will find it?”

  “Holy shit,” Nugent said, his eyes widening.

  “But the gun was just stuffed under the front seat,” Pelligrosso said. “Wouldn’t they be taking a big chance that he might find it? What if it slid out while he was driving?”

  “Not if they planted it at the same time he stopped over to see Davies,” Byron said. “It would only be there until he got home or until the police stopped him.”

  “That would mean Brennan would have to have planted it while he was upstairs,” Diane said.

  “She could have,” Stevens added. “Brennan said she left the condo right after Branch showed up,” Stevens added.

  “But Branch had the car keys,” Nugent said.

  “I’d be willing to bet Davies has a spare set to every car they own,” Byron said.

  “So if we think there’s a possibility that Branch was set up, who do we think killed Ramsey?” Stevens asked.

  “The only person we know who might possibly benefit by both men being out of the picture is Davies,” Diane said. “But we already know she didn’t leave the condo after seven-thirty that night. We’ve got video.”

  Byron tapped the marker on the metal whiteboard eraser tray. “Unless she knows a way out of that building undetected or has an accomplice. Winn said a woman drove Ramsey’s SUV to Veranda Street,” Byron said. He looked at Pelligrosso, waiting for it to register. “A blonde woman.”