Drexel passed the bank of lockers used by the employees and the aprons hanging on a rack as one entered the kitchen. He found the light switch panel to the left. He looked at the six switches. He flipped them all up and the crescendo of light nearly toppled him. He squinted and flipped down one of the switches. And then another. The overhead lights returned to darkness, bringing the kitchen back into a reasonable brightness. He walked around the kitchen, his hands behind his back. He did not know what he was looking for, so he examined the pots and pans hanging from the hooks above the tables. The dozens of baking sheets covered with the grime of hot ovens. He opened the refrigerator. Something had gone bad and he closed it. Finding nothing of interest, he walked up the stairs to the storage room and office. He entered the office. The chair the killer had used to make it seem as if Vickie had killed herself was gone. Fingerprint dust coated the desk. He walked over to the desk and stood behind it. What happened that night? She imagined her saying goodnight to Ricardo and Esme. Them walking out the door and down the stairs. Perhaps they had not even been in the office. Simply called up their parting words. And then someone enters. But who? Hank? Violent. Jealous. Vickie’s death the culmination of abuse she was unable to escape from—that her attempt to escape triggered the deadly encounter. Drexel paused because rage had not been part of the death. The killer had strangled Vickie. Not stabbed dozens of times or shot a half dozen. No overkill.
He replayed the conversations in his head both with Hank and with all those who sought fit to comment on Vickie’s husband. Except for his employer and friend, Adam, no kind words. But Hank had been with Adam all night. Something about Adam’s statement sunk in. Had he missed it? He pulled out his phone and called Adam.
“Yeah, this is Adam Thompson.”
“This is Detective Drexel Pierce. We spoke a few days ago.”
“Yeah, I remember. I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“A quick question. After Adam spent the night on your couch, you saw him the next day. Why?”
“Uh, because he forgot his phone at my place. I wanted to return it.”
“Did he forget it often?”
“All the time. That guy has bought more phones than I’ll buy in my life because he’s always forgetting them.” Adam covered the microphone, but Drexel could still hear, “Hold on. I know, I know.” He uncovered the mouthpiece. “Sorry about that. Is that it?”
“Yes, that’s all I needed. Thanks.”
Adam hung up and Drexel brought his attention back to the office and then stared across the room. Thinking. He sees Hank entering. Angry already. She called him at midnight. Hank claimed it was to say she would be late. But she seemed to be working normal hours for her. If Adam went to bed, Hank could have left the apartment and come to the restaurant to confront her. Had she told him about her plans to leave? To divorce him? If so, the cascade of consequences—not the least of which was Tunney’s investment—could lead to ugly retribution. Or had the truth of Chicago Investment Capitalization come to light, prompting Vickie to announce her intent to leave. Then the same consequences for Hank. The exact triggering was less important than the plausibility of those scenarios—both of which led to her death.
Seized by another thought, Drexel walked out of the office and across the hall to the storage room. He turned on the light and looked around. Downstairs the apron rack had been full. He would have to check the crime scene photos, but he was certain they were all there. The apron used to hang Vickie seemed to have been unused. He saw the box in the corner of the storage room. All the other containers were well organized, neat, in place. Someone had torn off this box’s sealing tape along with the flesh of the box. He walked over and took out a pen, which he used to lift the box’s lid. A plastic bag full of pristine, white aprons—with a couple of them looking as if they were partially pulled out, like the extra tissue that comes out when you pull the first one from the box. He stood up and looked around. Whoever killed Vickie walked into the storage room and right to the box with aprons. Opened it. And used two to hang her from the rafter.
He pulled out his phone and called Daniela.
“Hey, boss, what’s up?”
“Can you get down here to Fling? I need you to collect some evidence.”
“On my way.” She hung up.
He used the pen to close the box lid and then stepped back and photographed the box with his phone and then the undisturbed state of the rest of the store room. He put on a pair of nitrile gloves he pulled from his messenger bag. The box contained eight aprons. On the side of the box, the quantity was listed as ten.
He thought about his next move. He called Hank Fulsom.
“Hello? Lippel, Seal, and Dalton. This is Hank Fulsom.”
“Hank, this is Detective Pierce. I need you to be at the station this afternoon. Say two?”
“I’m afraid I have meetings.”
“It’s not a request.”
“Okay.”
Drexel hung up.
***
On the way back to the station, Drexel wondered about who was best positioned to shed light on the workings of Fling. He walked up the stairs and dropped his messenger bag on the desk. After unlocking the desk drawer, he pulled out and stared at the Sammy Sosa signed baseball. Who understood what happened in the locker rooms and dug outs of baseball. Bat boys. He picked up his phone. He looked up Esme’s number. She would have seen the comings and goings, observed the tensions, and understood when something went awry. Drexel dialed her number.
“Hello?”
Drexel recognized her voice. “Hello, this is Detective Drexel Pierce. Is this Esme Ortega?”
“Yes, it is. How can I help?”
“I’ll be a bit blunt here. I’m getting ready to interview Hank, Vickie’s husband here in a few minutes. Can I ask what you saw of their relationship?”
“I never liked him. He would come around with his friend all the time. He was so angry.”
“Friend?”
“Yeah. Adam or Aaron.”
“But Hank was angry?” Drexel asked.
“Yes. You could see it in his eyes. You could see that V was afraid of him.”
“Yes, it looks to have been a real fear. Do you recall Hank ever getting violent?”
“I saw him throw pots and throw glasses, but I never saw him hit V. But I know he did.”
“How did you know?”
“I just knew.”
“Okay. I’m going to send you a picture. Can you tell me if you recognize him?” Drexel switched his phone to the speaker so he could continue to talk while texting Esme the image of Bryce. “What else can you tell me about Hank?”
“He usually showed up late in the day. Would come in and—”
“What entrance did he usually use? And the picture is on its way.” He turned off the speaker and put the phone back to his ear.
“The back. He always used the back.”
“He had keys, right?”
“Yes.”
“So he showed up late usually?”
“Yes. He would take V upstairs most of the time. Sometimes I’d hear them fight.”
Drexel heard Esme’s gasp.
She said, “I’ve seen him. I’ve got the picture. I’ve seen him a couple of times. He’s the stalker.”
“A stalker?”
“Yes. V for months received flowers over and over again. She told me to toss them.”
“They weren’t from Hank?” Drexel asked.
“No. She never threw those away. He would’ve been angry. She hated roses, but he always sent them, and he always showed up those days.”
“We’re talking about Hank and the roses?”
“Yes. The others—the ones I thought were from the stalker—V told me to throw away. She didn’t even look at the card. They upset her.”
“Did she know who t
hey were from?”
“She seemed to know it was the stalker.”
“The guy from the photo?” asked Drexel.
“Yes. Why do you think he was the stalker?”
“He would show up. Never eat. He would ask to see V, but I never let him. Told him she was out—even if she was in.” She added the last phrase in a tone that she had committed a mortal sin. “I would sometimes see him watching the restaurant from across the street.”
“Did you call the police about him?”
“No. V told me not to. Should I have?”
Drexel rubbed his nose with his free hand. “I don’t think the guy in the photo had anything to do with what happened to your friend.” He did not know how quite to phrase that she still should have called the police without making her feel guilty, so he kept it to himself.
“So as far as you know, the flowers Vickie asked you to throw away came from the man in the picture, who you think was stalking her.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s what I thought.”
“Do you know where the flowers were from?”
“Yes. They came from a shop called Josie’s Flowers and Gifts.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, they had this card. The envelope the card was in. It was big and bright. Always the same. I remember it.”
“And not from Hank?”
“No. He always sent roses from different places. No, the ones from Josie’s were always lilies, her favorite. I always wondered how he knew that.”
Drexel thanked her and hung up. Bryce had turned out not to be the stalker—at least not the one sending the flowers. So who was sending Vickie her favorite flowers? He wrote down a note to find and check in with Josie’s.
Chapter 24
Through the camera feed wired into the monitor sitting on a file cabinet, Drexel squinted as he watched Hank Fulsom. Escorted in a few minutes earlier, Hank sat in the chair facing the door. Drexel found it a compelling theory that humans like to face entrances from some evolutionary, instinctual urge of self-preservation. One must see the enemy coming.
Hank wore a dark blue suit, pink shirt, and dark blue tie. His hair was moussed back on top. He had a hair cut since Drexel saw him yesterday. Strange, he thought. He remembered getting his hair cut before Zora’s wake. He had shaved as well. She was dead, but he was still going to look good for her. He thought most people felt the same. Did Hank? Drexel doubted it. He rubbed his jaw as he looked at the monitor. Hank held his hands together and tapped his thumbs against each other.
Drexel returned to his desk and pulled together the photographs from Hank’s beatings of Vickie, the crime scene—including the gruesome photos of her hanging—and the aprons now in their own plastic evidence bags. Daniela looked at him, her arms crossed, and leaning back in the chair, her booted feet on the corner of the desk. “So what’s the plan, boss?”
“You should help me with the interview. He thinks he’s better than any woman, so I’d like you to lead.”
“Kind of cliché, eh?” She smiled as she said it.
He smiled back. “Yeah, but I’m okay with that if you are.”
She dropped her feet to the floor and stood up. “Let’s nail the bastard.”
Drexel followed her with the box and folders of evidence. As Daniela opened the door, Hank stood up and looked past her at Drexel. Hank was not under arrest, so there were no handcuffs to keep him restrained. Daniela said, “Sit down.”
Hank snapped his head toward her. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Sit down.” She pointed at the chair. “Or I’ll cuff you.”
He looked at the chair, looked back at her, and shrugged before sitting down.
“So we’ve been going over the evidence,” she said, pointing at Drexel and the box he was holding, “and we’ve got some questions for you about your wife’s murder.” She nodded at Drexel.
He set the box on the table but without obstructing Hank’s view of them both. Hank glanced at it, peeking over the edge. “We’ve gone over this already. Do I need a lawyer?”
Daniela shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you?”
Hank’s eyes narrowed, and he paused before answering. “No. I’ve got nothing to hide. Like I’ve said, I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Good. So let’s go over again what you were doing the day and night of your wife’s murder.”
Hank described his day of getting up and going to work and deciding to hang out with his buddy Adam to watch some TV, play video games, and drink beer. Being the conscientious citizen he was, he knew he was too drunk to drive home, so he crashed on the couch. He woke up late the next morning—it was a Saturday—and drove home. He saw that Vickie was not at the apartment and presumed she had gone back into work. Taste of Chicago was starting in a few days so she was working extra hard to ensure the restaurant was set for the week along with her tent at Grant Park.
And they went over the story again. Daniela and Drexel driving for specific details. “What game did you play?” “Call of Duty.” “What did you watch?” “The Cubs lost to the Reds. I don’t remember the score.” “What time did you go to sleep?” “I don’t remember exactly. Around midnight. I’d had a tough week at work and was exhausted.” And on. Looking for discrepancies, for changes in the times, anything that might show a chink they could leverage. But the story was consistent, and Drexel worried that he would fall into the trap of believing the story was too consistent, too rehearsed. After an hour, Daniela decided to move to the evidence, which Hank had been glancing at during the course of the interview.
Daniela asked, “So why’d you lie about your alibi if you’ve got nothing to hide?”
“I didn’t lie. I was with Adam the entire time. We’ve already talked about this.”
“You were both asleep you say. You could’ve left the apartment and come back without him ever knowing. Not much of an alibi.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t. The doorman would know.”
“You’d think so, yes. But see, we checked into that. He got sick that night. He left at 11:39—that’s when he clocked out. We’ve got the timecard to prove it. He couldn’t get a replacement. So there was no doorman from 11:39 until 7:00 a.m. the next morning.” Daniela balled her hands into fists and tapped them against each other before tapping the table in front of her. “So he can’t help you.”
Hank shook his head and raised his hands in resignation. He snapped a finger up. “Wait.” He breathed in deep.
Drexel knew what he was about to do. It was, so Hank thought, his final defense.
“Wait.” Hank rolled his tongue across the inside of his bottom lip. “Okay. I know V put an app on my phone that monitored me.” He stroked his chin.
Daniela cocked her head to the side. “You’ll need to explain. Was this so she’d know where you were? Like my Friends app on my phone.”
Hank pursed his lips. “No. She did it and didn’t think I’d know.” He leaned back in the chair and then sat back straight up. “Look, I know you have the police reports where she claimed I beat her up.”
Drexel was not sure how Daniela kept her cool, but he was impressed.
Hank continued, “I didn’t. But obviously she wanted people to believe that. And she told her parents. And her dad, I think, told her to install an app on my phone that would let her know where I was all the time.”
Drexel had a hard time imagining Hector, Vickie’s father, was savvy enough with technology to know that. He said, “So your alibi beyond your friend is that you have an app on your phone that your abused wife installed so she would know where you were at all the time?”
“Yeah, check her phone. It’s there.” He shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. “I loved her. I’d never do that to her.”
Daniela leaned on the table. “Thing is. We knew about that app already. And the app does show that
your phone was at Adam’s.”
“So there. Why are you harassing me then?”
“Do you forget your phone at times? Leave it behind?”
“What?”
“Do you forget your phone? Leave it at places—in the car, at the restaurant?”
“No. I’m careful with it.”
Drexel leaned on the table. “See. There you go lying again. Not according to your friend Adam. He said you’re always forgetting your phone. And let’s be honest. You could be the most careful person with your phone ever. But the app your wife installed to protect herself from you only shows where the phone is. Not you. The fact that you chose to lie to us about how conscientious you are with your phone is, well, stupid.”
Hank’s jaw clenched.
“And then we have this.” Daniela pulled out the aprons and set them on the table. “These were used to tie the noose around your wife’s neck and hang her corpse from the ceiling.” She pulled out the photos Drexel had taken of the storage room. “Now look at these.” She tapped them with her finger. “You know your wife’s restaurant, right? So see this storage room is pristine except for this box of aprons. It’s open. And we counted. It was supposed to have ten in it. It has eight. So it seems reasonable that someone familiar with the storage room would know where to go. A stranger would have tossed the place looking for something. No?”
“Could’ve gotten lucky.”
Drexel shook his head. “You want to go to jury with that, be my guest.”
“Jury?” Hank rubbed a fist across his mouth. “I want a lawyer. Now.”
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve done in your life.” Drexel stood up, grabbed the box and folder but left the photographs of Vickie’s hanging body. “Go ahead, call him. We have all day.”
Daniela followed Drexel out of the interview room, closing the door behind her. He looked up at the monitor and watched Hank pull a phone from his pocket. They waited two hours—Hank left the interview room only to use the restroom—before Silas Jurgensen arrived. Drexel knew him from several trial appearances. Silas was the younger and smarter brother of the Jurgensen Law firm. He seemed to appear in nearly every high-profile criminal case in Chicago. Hank had called in one of the big guns of criminal defense.
Justice in Slow Motion (Drexel Pierce Book 3) Page 19