Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  She nodded and closed the door, turning her back and walking away. Sam felt terribly alone, just then, and wished with all his heart that Dan Jacobs were still alive. At least then, he figured, there would be one person on the force who wouldn't believe he was a cold-blooded killer.

  A few minutes later, a policeman got into the front seat and said, “I hear you're an ex-cop. That true?”

  Sam said, “Yes.”

  The officer shook his head. “They're gonna have fun with you in prison,” he said, then started the car and drove out toward the detention center. The last thing Sam noticed as they drove away was that his motorcycle wasn't in the driveway.

  The cop pulled the car into the Sally Port at the detention center, and got out to lock his weapon into a locker on the wall before he opened the door and reached in to help Sam stand up. Sam's hip gave a sharp twinge, and he almost fell, but the officer held him up.

  “No games,” he said. “We're going inside to booking, don't give me any trouble.”

  “I'm not,” Sam growled. “I took three bullets to my hip, and it still gives me trouble. I'm okay now.”

  They waited for the jailer on duty to buzz them in, and Sam was escorted past the detention center's operations desk and to a holding cell. The cuffs were removed, and Sam went directly to the pay phone on the wall. He fumbled in his pocket for change, and shoved fifty cents into the phone, then dialed Indie's number.

  “Hello?” she said, not recognizing the number.

  “Baby, it's me,” Sam said, and Indie began talking fast.

  “Oh, God, Sam, where are you? Why aren't you on your own phone? I know you’re gonna get mad, but Mom called, and said Beauregard said to tell you you’re about to be in trouble...”

  Sam sighed. “Well, you can tell her he was right again. Indie, I can't tell you all of it on the phone, but I've been arrested for the murder of Juliette Connors. All I know right now is that I woke up lying on the floor beside her body, but it looks like I did it, after leaving the last person I told you I was going to see. As far as I know, she was shot to death with my gun, but I don't remember anything after talking to you-know-who.”

  Indie let out a sob. “Oh, my God, Sam,” she said, her voice desperate. “Sam, what do I do?”

  “The first thing I need you to do is get me an attorney, fast. In this case, I think I need the same one Carl's using, Carol Spencer. That's also the lawyer Mrs. Connors was using for her divorce, so she may object, but ask her to come and see me as soon as possible. Give her a retainer, whatever she wants; I need her fast.”

  Indie was crying. “Okay, Sam, I'll call her right now. Can you call me back in a few minutes?”

  “I don't know if I can or not, babe, but I'll call you as soon as I'm able. I love you.”

  “Oh, Sam, I love you too! I know you didn't do this, babe, and we'll prove it, I swear!” She sighed into the phone, and Sam's heart was breaking at the pain he could hear in her voice. “Beauregard said I was gonna have to be the one to save you.”

  “Well, for once, it's okay to do what Beauregard says. In fact, if he's got any advice, I'm willing to listen!”

  “I'll call the lawyer now, and then I'll call Mom and ask. I love you, Sam. I'll talk to you soon!”

  She hung up, and Sam did likewise, then went to the little bathroom area and looked into the steel mirror. There was blood on his face, neck and hands, so he rinsed it off the best he could, then took a seat on a bench. He was feeling a little tired, but other than that, he couldn't detect any notable side effects of whatever drugs had been used on him. He hoped the lawyer would get there soon, because he wanted his blood tested immediately. He didn't know how long it took for zolpidem to get out of his system, so he didn't even want to go to the bathroom before that.

  6

  Sam sat there for about half an hour and was thinking about calling Indie back when his name was called. He looked up to see the female jailer who'd been escorting him to see Carl standing at the door of the cell, just staring at him.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Mr. Prichard,” she said slowly, “you've got an attorney here to see you. I need you to turn around so I can cuff you, sir.”

  Sam did as she directed, knowing that it was simply procedure, and she took him by the arm and led him to that same interview room. An older woman with glasses was sitting inside waiting, and when he'd been cuffed to the table, she introduced herself.

  “Mr. Prichard,” she said, “I'm Carol Spencer. I've been expecting to talk to you, but this isn't what I'd envisioned. Carl Morris said you were supposed to get with me about your retainer yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “I've been kind of busy. Thanks for coming so quickly. Did my wife happen to give you any background on the cases I've been working on?”

  Carol smiled. “That girl can talk faster than any client I've ever had,” she said. “She told me a lot, including your theories about what happened to Mr. Morris, and to Annie Corning, and that you and she think something similar happened to make you kill one of my other clients.” She sat and looked at him for a moment, and he was about to speak, when she went on. “The funny thing is, I believe it. Every word. I've known Alex Connors for years, and this wouldn’t be the first time I've been on the opposite side of a courtroom from him. I represented a couple of women who claim that he sexually assaulted them some time back. They claimed something similar, that they would suddenly wake up in bed with him, and he'd tell them that they ran into each other somewhere, and the ladies couldn't keep their hands off him. Unfortunately for my clients, there were witnesses and security footage that made it clear that he was telling the truth. I often wondered if his hypnosis was involved, but psychiatric experts all say that isn't possible.”

  “It isn't,” Sam said, “under normal hypnosis, but when drugs and alcohol are added into the mix, things get murkier. I want you to get my blood tested immediately. We're looking for zolpidem and alcohol.”

  “I've already got a nurse coming to draw your blood, should be any second now. I want to know what they find, too. You're aware that both of them were found in Carl's blood, right?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, I know. That's what set me on this path. Then, when I found out that he'd been to Connors' office that morning, I began to think that there was a connection. When I found out that Annie Corning was there as well, just before she started acting weird, I was sure of it.”

  Carol nodded, and made a note on a pad she'd laid in front of her. “Tell me about your meeting with Connors.”

  “I went there unannounced, and he invited me back into his office. I told him my suspicions, which he denied, of course, and then I challenged him, asked if he'd be willing to let me look around. He said no, and told me to get police and a warrant if I thought I had a case, and that he was done talking to me. I started to leave, I remember, and the next thing I know, I'm in Mrs. C.'s house with her body laying beside me and blood on my hands. I saw that she was dead and took out my phone to call for help, and that's when I heard sirens right outside, so I got up and was going to the door when the cops bashed the door in. That's it.”

  Carol nodded and scribbled, and then they heard the door opening. A jailer stood there with a nurse.

  “I'm supposed to draw blood,” the nurse said, and Carol nodded. She came in and Sam held out his free arm. Carol put a finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet until the nurse and jailer were gone.

  The nurse drew three vials of blood from Sam, and he suppressed the urge to make vampire jokes; he wasn’t in a laughing mood, of course. When she was done, she and the jailer left the room and he and Carol were alone again.

  “Sam,” she began, “can I call you Sam? Sam, I'm not gonna beat around the bush. Without some serious evidence, the best we can hope for with this defense is a reasonable doubt as to premeditation. Unless we can prove how any drugs, assuming we find any, got into your system, we can't be convincing as to a motive or a method or a perpetrator. The other problem we're go
ing to run into is that I now have two clients who need this defense, yourself and Carl. If I try it twice in a row, with nothing to back it up other than the circumstantial evidence that both of you were at his office before the murders occurred, I'm going to get both of you sent to death row.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Sam, is there anything else you can think of that might help us prove that Connors is behind this?”

  Sam sat and thought, but couldn't come up with anything that he felt would make a difference. “The real problem is that I have no idea of his motives,” he said. “I had already wondered if he was using Annie Corning for sex, and hearing about your previous clients makes me think I was on the right track, there, but why on earth would he want Carl to kill his family? What possible motive could he have for doing this sort of thing to Carl?”

  “Well, remember, zolpidem has its own nasty side effects. It's possible that Connors is using it for a less sinister purpose, like to make people more amenable to things he wants them to do, but that what happened with Carl was only a coincidence.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, I've considered that, but then we've got me. There's no doubt in my mind that I was programmed to go there, whether I actually killed her or not, and I think we have to assume I did. I can't imagine that he tried to get me to do something innocuous, but instead I went and shot his wife—which, incidentally, is awfully convenient since he was about to have to pay her a whopping lot of money! Did he know that, yet, I wonder?”

  “Well, his lawyer did. I sent him copies of the documents you sent to me as soon as I got them. He'd have probably told Connors, and it's even possible that Connors knew who you were when he heard your name, since it was right there on the pages you faxed to me.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “I hadn't thought of that, but then, he surely wouldn’t have been expecting me. Somehow, he managed to knock me out fast and then program me, and I literally remember nothing. This guy is incredibly dangerous.”

  “Well, I'm not going to dispute that, but we still have to prove it. Any bright ideas, there, Mr. Investigator?”

  Sam sat there and hung his head for a minute, trying to think of anything that might help. Suddenly he looked up. “Maybe,” he said. “What if we could get corroborating statements from other people who have experienced weird behavior after seeing him?”

  Carol thought about it. “Well, if any of them happened to have gotten into some kind of trouble, actually broken the law by doing something that was convincingly out of character, that would be pretty powerful. I doubt we'll ever get to bring him to justice, though, because he's almost certain to disappear as soon as he finds out we're working on this as a defense, and especially if he knows there are others out there who could add fuel to our fires. If we can get a jury to believe that he's really doing these things, then it is very possible I can get you acquitted, in spite of the physical evidence.” She thought for a moment. “Ironically, one of the women I represented is no longer living; she killed herself over the whole thing, poor kid. The other one I might be able to track down, and she could help, if she will. If it means another shot at hanging Connors, or at least proving she wasn't the slut he said she was, I think she'd do it.”

  Sam smiled. “Then you get the blood results and work on that, and I'll get my wife tracking down the rest of his patients from the past few years. Surely we'll find at least a few of them who have gotten into some kind of trouble, doing something they can't explain.”

  Carol nodded. “Okay, we've got one more thing to do while I'm here. Detective Parks from homicide wants to speak to you.”

  Sam nodded. “That's fine. I just said I wouldn't talk without a lawyer. Should I say anything about our suspicions?”

  “I wouldn't go into detail about everything just yet, but you can certainly say that the last you remember, you were at her husband's office, and that you believe you've been framed. Let's keep it simple, we're dealing with a homicide detective; they don’t always have the most open of minds.”

  Sam grinned and nodded, and Carol got up and tapped on the door. When the jailer opened it, she said, “We're ready for the detective,” and he closed it again. Carol sat down again, but this time she took a chair next to Sam. Karen Parks came in a minute later with another detective and sat opposite them.

  “Sam,” she said, nodding. “Carol. This is detective Brenner, he's assisting on this case.” Brenner nodded, but said nothing. “Sam, I'd like you to tell me how you came to be at Mrs. Connors' home, and what you know about her death.”

  Sam shrugged. “Karen, I know you won't believe this, but I don't know anything about either. I went to see her husband about something to do with one of my investigations, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up beside a dead body. I started to call 911, and then I heard sirens and cars outside, so I waited, and the door busted open and I was arrested. That is literally all I know.”

  Brenner snorted, but Parks shushed him. “Sam, are you saying Dr. Connors somehow framed you?”

  “That's my belief, yes.”

  She sat there for a moment, then opened the folder she'd brought in and looked at a page inside it. “Preliminary ballistics says that your gun is the weapon that killed Mrs. Connors.”

  “I would expect so,” Sam said. “Not much point in a frame-up if you don’t use the framer's gun.”

  Parks suppressed a smile. “I was the one who went to tell Dr. Connors that his wife was dead, and that you were found at the scene. He seemed surprised, but I couldn't tell if it was genuine or not. He said you were working for his wife on their divorce, and that you'd been there to see him, said you were offering to get rid of some documentation you'd found on some of his assets in return for a substantial amount of money. He said he told you to get out, you left, and he hadn't been out of the office since then. His dental hygienist and receptionist both confirmed his story, said you stormed out in a huff and that Connors never left the office afterward.”

  Sam snorted. “That's the kind of story I'd expect him to concoct. Did he suggest a motive, why I might want to kill her? If you check it out, you'll find that I was set to receive ten percent of the assets she received from him in the divorce, which would have been around sixteen million dollars. Killing her would be like killing that golden goose, wouldn't it?”

  She nodded. “I guess so, but he said you were hitting him up for five million, and figures you went there to demand more from her, when you didn't get anywhere with him. If you were after a bigger golden egg, and she didn't cooperate, I can see where things might have gotten heated. One thing leads to another, tempers go through the roof, and a gun goes off. It's happened before.”

  Sam shook his head. “Karen, you've known me how many years? Have I ever gone off half-cocked?”

  “Nope,” she said. “But this is the first time we've ever seen this sort of a situation around you, Sam, so we're in unexplored territory. You know how my job works; no matter how I feel about you personally, I've got to look at the evidence, and that doesn't make your armor very shiny right now, old buddy! You got anything you can give me that'll lend any credibility to your story?”

  Sam looked at Carol, who shook her head slightly, then turned back to Parks. “How about the fact that Connors stood to lose sixteen million dollars to his wife, which could be a pretty good motive to get rid of her, don't you think?”

  “Could be, but he's got a credible alibi, while you were found at the scene with the body and your prints all over the murder weapon. That makes you the star of the show, Sam, whether any of us likes it or not. On the other hand, if his alibi is false, then that implicates the receptionist and hygienist, as well, as accessories.”

  Sam sighed. “Karen, do you really believe I did this?”

  Parks gave him a sad smile. “Not for a split second, Sam, but it's my job to prove that you did, anyway, and the sad part is that you've given me just about everything I need to do that. If you can give me anything else, anything at all, I'll do what I can, but you gotta give
me something to work with.”

  Sam looked down at the table. “All I can say right now is that there may be something coming. I can't go into it because if you get involved, it could mess up what I'm trying to do.”

  Brenner had been staring at Parks, but at this, he said, “So, what? You're gonna pull some rabbit out of your hat?”

  Parks cut her eyes toward him. “Shut up, Brenner,” she said, and then motioned for him to follow her out the door.

  Carol patted Sam's hand. “I know it was hard to keep your mouth shut, but I think we need a lot more ammo before we show them our big guns, don't you?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. I'm okay. At least I know Karen believes I could be innocent, and she's a good cop. That helps.”

  Carol stood. “Alright, then, I'm going to get on this from every angle I can think of. You keep it together in here.” She shook his hand and promised to keep in close touch with both him and Indie. Sam sat there for a few moments after she left, and then the same lady jailer came for him. She looked at him as she walked him back up the hallway.

  “I'm hearing rumors that the same demon that got Mr. Morris got hold of you,” she said. “I know a couple of cops who know you, and they say there's no way you'd do this, no matter what the evidence looks like.”

  Sam smiled at her. “Well, you tell them I appreciate it,” he said, “but right now, I'm just like Mr. Morris, and I have no real idea exactly what happened. We'll have to wait and see.”

  She shrugged. “For what it's worth, I think you're innocent.” A moment later, she took the cuffs off again as she put him back into the holding cell. He was only there a few seconds before another jailer called him, this time to be booked in on a preliminary charge of first degree murder. He was photographed, fingerprinted, weighed and measured, and then taken to a stall where he was stripped naked and hosed down with something that was supposed to kill head and body lice. After that, he was escorted, still naked, to the showers, where he was given soap and a towel. When his shower was done, he was taken into another room, where he was given the orange jumpsuit that is worn by those charged with felonies.