Silas, dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit. Underneath, he wore a light blue shirt with a white collar, silver cufflinks, and red tie. The lawyer stood near the elevator in the squad room. “I’m looking for my client, Hank Fulsom.”
Drexel raised his hand. “He’s in interview room two.” He pointed at it.
Silas nodded his head, walked up to the door, twisted the knob, and paused. He looked up at the monitor. “Turn this off.”
Daniela stood up, smiled, and turned it off.
Silas looked at the monitor and seemed to question whether it was off or not. Satisfied, he walked into the interview room and closed the door behind him. After forty-five minutes, the interview room door opened once more and Silas appeared. “We’re ready for you.” He stepped back into the room, leaving the door ajar.
Drexel decided not to make them wait, nodded at Daniela, and then walked into the room, closing the door after Daniela had paused to turn on the monitoring equipment. He said, “We’ve turned on the recording again.” Daniela sat and then Drexel sat. Silas stood, his back to the far wall.
“My client,” said Silas, “has insisted on talking to you some more despite my recommendation that he leave and not speak to you again. I hope you’ll take this as evidence of his desire to cooperate.”
Drexel leaned back. “We’ll see.” He focused his attention on Hank. “So you were mentioning something about someone getting lucky finding the aprons in that storage room. And that you don’t have an alibi—except for your phone.”
“Look, I know it sounded weird. But you’ve got to believe me, I didn’t kill my wife. And there’re other people who know that storage room. People with more reason to hurt her than me.”
Drexel shook his head. “This is what we’re talking about, Hank. You say shit like that when we know—we know—you had reason to hurt her. You sent her hundreds of angry texts. You left awful voice mails. You physically beat her. You’re like every other abusive husband.”
Silas raised his hand toward Drexel. “Back off detective. My client stipulates to the fact his wife called the police, that he sent those texts. But he maintains his innocence about the violence.”
Drexel raised his hands in exasperation. “Then tell me who else knew about the aprons in the storage room. Who else had reason to kill her.”
Silas nodded at Hank, who said, “I don’t know specifically about the aprons, but you had that sous-chef, Alex. That creep David Hussain knew all about it. He was there a few times. Her dad, he helped out sometimes. Anyone that worked there. Hell, Adam had been in there before. Shit, you’ve got a lot.”
“But none with as good a reason to kill her as you.”
“That’s BS. Alex and she—I just know it—had a thing. She and Hussain did too. She fucking cheated on me, and they wanted her in their lives and not me.”
Silas patted Hank’s arm.
Hank looked at his lawyer and nodded once. “Maybe they got pissed.”
“So you think either Alex or Hussain had reason to kill her because they were in love with her. And her dad?”
“What?”
“You threw out his name. Was he a pervert?”
“No.” Hank’s head raised up and back with his shaking of it. “But they had money problems. I know her dad was begging her for money. He came to me once desperate for it. I gave him some. That’s the kind of guy I am.”
Drexel leaned back. “We’ve spoken to Alex and Hussain. We’ve cleared them.”
Silas stepped forward. “Well, you’ve got some other clearing to do. My client did not kill his wife.” He patted Hank on the back and motioned for him to stand. “We’re leaving now. Call me if you have any other questions for my client.” He set a business card on the table.
Daniela pulled out a photograph, stepped up, and flipped it over, slapping it on the table. “Hank, that’s the kind of man you are.” The photograph was one of the worst ones documenting Vickie’s abuse. Her right eye was swollen nearly shut. Dark bruises were under both eyes and in the cheeks. A cut across the lower lip, which was swollen. “This is the kind of guy you are.”
Silas tugged on Hank’s arm, but he paused and looked at the photo.
“Because of you, we’re not talking about her new restaurant or her success. No. We’re talking about her being beaten. This,” Daniela tapped the photograph, “is the kind of man you are.”
Chapter 25
Drexel sat on the chair on his balcony porch. The morning sun promised heat, but the air was still cool enough to allow him this, one of his favorite things: sitting outside in the early light with a cup of coffee. The remnants of a strawberry Pop-Tart decorated a small plate beside the cup. He had said his good mornings and have a nice days to Ryan, who was on his way to work amidst the Chicago morning traffic. Hart had poked his head out but decided the heat was too much for him and retreated inside.
He expected a judge would approve this morning the warrant for digging into Vickie’s parents’ finances, but Drexel wanted to talk to Hector before that. To warn him about the warrant and give himself a chance to come clean if anything was amiss. Drexel hated that he was following up on this based on Hank Fulsom’s insinuation, but if he was arrested and it went to trial, it would come up as a possible counter-story to the prosecution. Drexel knew he needed to explore the potential to its fullest to ensure the prosecutor could knock any such argument down in trial. But he hated doing this to a mourning family. The wife-beater gets to hurl out accusations without consequence to himself.
Drinking the last of his coffee, he stood up and looked at the sky through the rectangular opening of the apartment complex’s courtyard. Blue and clear. He walked back into the apartment and closed the door behind him. Hart poked his head from the bedroom and retreated back. Drexel washed out the coffee mug and set it on the drying rack before walking out.
From the interview several days before, Drexel knew that Hector worked at Turning Windows, a plant in Lawndale. He hopped onto the Blue Line at Division and took it into the Loop, switching to the Pink Line at Clark, which took him west. He got off at Kostner station and then walked west on 21st and then south on Kostner. Despite the modest revival in the early 2000s, Lawndale seemed haunted by its past of riots, abandonment, and decay. The west side of Kostner was edged by a chainlink fence where trees and brushes crawled at their edges. Litter hugged the sidewalk. And beyond the fence a grassy wasteland where a former plant once stood. Drexel wondered if this is where International Harvester, Zenith, or Sunbeam had once employed the Czechs, Germans, Austrians, Jews, and Blacks until the 70s and the beginning decline in American manufacturing.
He crossed Cermak Road. Turning Windows sat half a block south of Cermak, breaking up a series of two-flats in various degrees of health and decay. The plant was a one story rather plain looking, brick building. Blue-tinted, iron-barred windows lined the street side except for the divot of the entrance doors. A sign on the small stretch of grass between the building and the road the only indicator of the building’s occupants. Etched in the limestone arch above the entrance “Abel and Sons Manufacturing.” Drexel walked in and stopped at the front desk, where a woman in her early twenties, he guessed, greeted him. She wore a dark green polo shirt with Turning Windows emblazoned on the upper-left chest. She smiled and said, “Welcome. How may I help you?”
Drexel pulled out his badge. “I’m looking for Hector Lopez. I need to speak to him about his daughter.”
The woman frowned and nodded her head. She turned to the computer at her right and typed. She frowned and cocked her head to the side. “Lopez with a z, right?”
Drexel nodded.
She typed some more before turning to look at the detective. “I’m not seeing that we have an employee named Hector Lopez.”
“I understood from him that he’s worked here for several years.”
She looked back at her comput
er and turned the monitor so that Drexel could see it. She said, “You can see. Nothing’s come up.”
He looked at the screen. She had typed his name correctly. A blank spot in a box was where his name should have appeared. He saw a tab on the screen with “1 result found” showing. “What’s that?” He pointed to the tab.
She clicked it. “Oh, we did have an employee named Hector Lopez working here. But it says,” she clicked and waited for the screen to load, “his last day was March 10th earlier this year.”
“You’re sure?” But he could see the screen itself. “Sorry, I’m surprised is all. Is there a manager I can speak with? Someone who would be able to give me some details?”
She nodded, picked up the phone from the cradle next to the computer monitor. “Hey there. Yeah, this is Sandy. I’ve got a police officer, a detective, wanting to find out about an employee. No. No. No, he’s no longer working here. Okay, I’ll tell him.” She placed the phone back on the receiver. “Jodi Byles, our HR person, is coming out to talk to you. You can wait there.” She pointed to a wood-frame couch with tan cushions next to a wall perpendicular to the front desk and entrance. He sat and fumbled in his head with the information he just learned. Hector had lied to him. But why? What did it gain him? What did it save him from?
A few minutes passed before Jodi, dressed in a blue suit with a red blouse, walked out and smiled at Drexel. “Hello,” she extended her hand, “I’m Jodi Byles. I understand you have some questions about a former employer?”
“I do.” He introduced himself and she escorted him back to her office, a plain office with furniture that looked a couple of decades old. On the desk, two framed images of Jodi and a young boy. Jodi confirmed that Hector had been let go in a downsizing the company had undergone in an effort to restructure itself to prosperity. The original owners of the window factory shut it down overnight in 2006, which caught the 300 employees off guard. In anger, they conducted a sit-in for the severance pay they were entitled to per the labor agreement. After an escalating war of words, a feature in the Chicago Tribune brought public pressure to bear in favor of the workers, and they collected their severance. Another company purchased the plant and re-hired 250 of the staff, but it too shut down in 2012. The plant was then purchased by the workers and set up as a union co-op. Still, the plant struggled, so the co-op agreed to lay off employees with the least seniority, and that round caught Hector Lopez. The company gave him sixty days notice and the union guaranteed severance package. Jodi emphasized that Lopez was a good employee, and his dismissal was unrelated to job performance. Drexel thanked Jodi for her time and left the plant. He called up Daniela as he walked to the L station.
“What’s up boss?”
“Hey there. I spoke to Hector Lopez’s employer, Turning Windows. Turns out, he was let go in March. Can you run a more thorough background check on him. The warrant for his financials should be signed when I get in.”
“Sure thing. What are you doing until then?”
“Going to go see Hector.”
***
Hector slumped in a lawn chair beneath a large umbrella attached to a wood table, a Chicago Bulls baseball cap pulled over his eyes. Missy jumped off her owner’s lap and walked up to the edge of the shade provided by the umbrella and barked. Hector twitched and then jerked awake. He lifted the cap from his eyes, fixed his gaze on Drexel, and then closed his eyes for several seconds. A Coors Lite can sat on the grass beside him.
“Hector, we’ve got to talk.”
Missy barked.
Drexel said, “I’ve been doing some leg work. Visited the factory.”
Missy jumped and yapped.
“Hush,” Hector said. He stared at Drexel, who waited on the other side of the fence. “So you know, eh?”
The detective nodded once. He lifted the gate latch and walked over and stood beneath the shade. While the humidity was thick, at least he could do as the dog did and avoid the direct sunlight. “Does your wife know?”
Hector shook his head.
“Why?”
“I worked hard all my adult life. Provided for this family.” He rolled his lower lip and bit it. “Now here I am, 50, and without a job. And not sure I can get another job. Have you seen any plant jobs around? Shit.”
“So we brought Hank in yesterday to talk to him more,” said Drexel.
“Did you arrest him?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?” Hector shouted. Missy looked back at him and then at Drexel.
“He says you begged him and your daughter for money.”
Hector dropped his head.
Drexel continued, “I want as good a case as I can bring to the prosecutor. So I need to take a look at your finances. I wanted to warn you, so I went to Turning Windows.”
“Pendejos.”
“And here I am. So do you want to tell me. Tell me about how you went to the man who beat your daughter and begged him for money.”
Hector flew up from his chair and raised his right hand. Drexel stepped back to put distance between him and the man. He dropped his hand to his gun and pulled it out, turning off the safety in the same motion. He held the Glock at Hector’s chest. Missy flew into a paroxysm of barking. Drexel held out his left hand and pointed at Hector. “Stop right there.”
Hector stood, his fist clenched. The dog barking and spinning.
“Slowly get to your knees.”
A pause of a few seconds, and then Hector dropped to his knees, his fist unclenching.
“Lay face down on the grass.”
Hector did.
“Now interlock your fingers and put your hands on your head.”
Hector complied. Drexel walked over and handcuffed him. He then called dispatch and asked for a patrol officer to come to the Lopez’s address to transport Hector to the station.
“Am I under arrest?”
“We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 26
Hector sat in the same room and in the same chair as Hank had done the previous day. Handcuffed, he looked down at the table. Drexel shook his head at the monitor and walked back to his desk. Daniela, sitting at a desk she had taken over from Natalie Connor, another day-shift detective, looked up at Drexel as he sat down and picked up the plastic-box encased Sammy Sosa signed baseball.
“You know, despite the fact that Sammy didn’t leave the Cubs on good terms, I admired the game play he brought here.”
“It was real shitty of him to not play that last game.”
Drexel nodded, flipping the baseball around and then holding it.
Daniela said, “What are you going to do with him?” She gestured with a head nod to the interview room.
He sighed. “I’m not going to arrest him, but I want to finish asking him my questions before he gave me a reason to arrest him. I’ll give him a few more minutes.” He placed the baseball on the desk, grabbed the mouse and shook it, firing up his computer. He read a few emails about changes in policy, a charity event hosted by a station in Evanston, and a demand the police union was considering including in the next round of negotiations. Afterward, he went to the kitchenette and filled two mugs with coffee and then walked back to the interview room.
When he opened the door, Hector looked up. “I’m so sorry. I—I—I got angry. But you’re right. So right.”
Drexel sat one of the mugs in front of Hector before sitting himself, holding the other mug. “So you did ask Hank for money?”
“Si. Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand the first time. Three thousand the next.”
“Did he give it to you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask your daughter for money?”
Hector shook his head. “No. No, I couldn’t ask her.”
Drexel took a sip of the coffee. It was warm, but not hot.
The volume of cream he put in his helped make it cool enough to drink right away. “Does your wife know you borrowed money?”
“No.”
“Do you see how this looks?”
Hector rubbed his chin with both hands. The handcuff chain clanking. “I don’t see what it has to do with him killing my daughter.”
Drexel scratched behind his ear. “Well, it’s pretty simple. If we go to trial prosecuting Hank for killing your daughter, he can now do two things. One, he can claim that he’s not such a bad guy and say, ‘Her father liked me enough to borrow money.’ You don’t like him, but all he has to do is say something like that. It helps him. Two, he could go even farther and suggest maybe you had something to do with your daughter’s death.”
Hector’s head snapped up. He took in a deep breath. “How could that be?”
“He can come up with something. I can. The point is there’s a money motive out there now. It undermines our case against Hank. Prosecutors like simple, straightforward stories to tell juries. You have an alibi. That’s good. Blunts anything Hank may say.” Drexel leaned back and put the mug on the table. “Look, nothing may come of it. But you need to be prepared.”
“I suppose I need to tell Sabeen now.”
Drexel did not answer.
Hector continued, “Are you arresting me?”
The detective shook his head. “I’ll cut you a break there.” He stood up and uncuffed Hector and walked him out to the squad room. “Take the elevator to the first floor. That’ll get you to the front door.”
Hector nodded and walked away.
Justice in Slow Motion (Drexel Pierce Book 3) Page 20