by Diane Kelly
Though Sherry’s criminal record would prevent her from being nominated for a citizen-of-the-year award, it contained no violent crimes. But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? And her crimes had been escalating, in both frequency and egregiousness.
Hmm.…
When she’d stepped up to my cruiser I’d noticed she wore a wedding band. Now that I knew the woman’s name, it took little time to check the marriage records.
Per the vital statistics data, she’d married a Michael Lipscomb fifteen years prior. I ran a criminal background check on him and found that he, too, had a well-developed rap sheet, many of his convictions coinciding with Sherry’s. Evidently the two had been partners in crime on several occasions. While Sherry’s record contained no violent crimes, Michael’s contained an assault charge. Unfortunately, the system gave only dates, the degree and type of offense, and the disposition. The particular details of the crimes were not included.
Fortunately, where the government system left off the Internet news reports often took over. A quick Google search brought up an image of Michael Lipscomb from a newspaper report on the assault. The guy in the photo had bushy gray hair and a beard. Sure enough, he was the guy in the bike shorts. The short article stated that Lipscomb had been convicted of assaulting two men at a truck stop in the South Texas town of McAllen. The men had been hauling horses to Mexico for slaughter. The article noted that there had been an argument prior to the assault but failed to detail the victims’ injuries.
Finished with my first task, I minimized the window and moved on to the next assignment—background searches on Irving, Serhan, Ricky, and Scott.
Irving had no criminal record. Same for Serhan and Ricky. Scott was another matter. My research indicated that he’d once been arrested for criminal mischief, but the charges had been dismissed.
Hmm.…
The Texas criminal mischief statute was a broad one, providing a wide range of punishments for property damage based on the value of the property. Depending on the extent of the damage, a violation could constitute anything from a Class C misdemeanor to a felony of the first degree. I wondered what Scott had done to raise the arresting officer’s suspicions. I also knew that the failure of the district attorney to prosecute didn’t necessarily mean a person was innocent. It usually meant the DA thought there was insufficient evidence to win the case.
I stood and stepped over to the file cabinet. Inside were the personnel files of those employed directly by the mall itself, including the mall administrative team, the security staff, maintenance and custodial workers, and the carousel and train operators.
Irving’s file contained nothing suspicious. Nothing even remotely interesting, for that matter. Irving had been employed for the last decade by the development company that owned the Shoppes at Chisholm Trail. He’d begun his career as a lowly staff member in one of the smaller malls in the outer suburbs, working his way up the chain to larger malls and a shift supervisor position before becoming the foreman here. Before working for the developer, Irving had operated his own handyman service. Under “Reason for Leaving” his handyman job, he’d written: Want steady work. I set his file on the desk for easy reference later when Detective Jackson returned.
As I resumed thumbing through the file folders, Randy’s file caught my eye. Curious, I pulled his folder from the cabinet. According to his application, his full name was Timothy Randall William Dunham III. A pretty fancy name for a not-fancy-at-all guy. In the education section he’d noted that he’d spent a little over two years as a philosophy major at Southern Methodist University in the neighboring city of Dallas and achieved a 4.0 grade point average. Impressive. Judging from the dates listed, though, he’d dropped out midterm during the fall of his junior year ten months ago. I found myself wondering why. Had he lost interest? Run out of money? Realized that the job market for existentialists was nonexistent?
The résumé Randy had submitted with his application noted he’d been involved in various theater groups in the area, having once played the leading male role in a production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Could his dramatic ambitions have derailed his college career? Did he see his position as the cowboy carousel operator as some type of role, a small stepping-stone on the way to bigger things, maybe a bit part in the popular Nashville TV show?
Oh, well. No point in wasting my time on an idle curiosity. People dropped out of college all the time for all kinds of reasons. It wasn’t for everyone.
I returned Randy’s file to the cabinet and pulled out Ricky’s paperwork. His full name was Richard Alexander Espinosa. When he’d applied for the security position nine months ago, he’d provided only a local post office box number on the application even though the form specifically asked for a physical home address. On his I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form he listed a residential address in El Paso. This same address appeared on the copy of his driver’s license included in his file.
Mr. Castleberry really needed to pay more attention to detail. No way was Ricky commuting from a town six hundred miles to the west. But where was he living now?
Curious, I stepped over my sleeping, snoring partner and returned to Mackey’s laptop to check the driver’s license records. The El Paso address was the address currently on record with the state. Ricky hadn’t yet updated his information with the DMV, despite the fact that Texas law required updates to be made within thirty days of a change in residence. But did this discrepancy mean anything? Perhaps not. After all, who hadn’t gotten so busy with everyday life that they’d forgotten to take care of a bill or missed a dental appointment? Failure to update a driver’s license could be a similar innocent oversight.
I set Ricky’s file on the desk for the detective to look at when she returned and riffled through the remaining files until I found Scott’s documentation. The home address on all of his documents was the same, and the address matched the one listed in the DMV’s driver’s license and motor vehicle registration database. The only question now was whether he actually lived at the address, which was in the northwestern part of town, not far from Greenwood Cemetery.
Per Scott’s employment application, he’d attended the University of North Texas in Denton for four years but hadn’t graduated, earning a total of only sixty-six credit hours and a cumulative GPA of 2.1 during that time. While his academic record had been undeniably substandard, he had held a variety of leadership positions in his fraternity. Recruitment Event Organizer. Chair of the Party Planning Committee. Sorority Liaison, which he spelled as Leazon. If I had to hazard a guess about the end of his academic career, I’d say his parents had tired of his hit-or-miss approach to his studies and cut him off after his arrest.
Though Scott had not disclosed the criminal mischief arrest on his application, I couldn’t blame him. The question on the form asked only about convictions, not arrests, so technically he hadn’t lied.
Though there was no personnel file on Serhan, Stacy, Karla, or Vu, Mr. Castleberry did maintain files for each of his tenants. I took a peek at each in turn.
Serhan’s file included his lease application, a copy of the booth rental agreement, and a copy of the credit report Castleberry had run to ensure Serhan wasn’t a deadbeat. Serhan had a good payment history, though his credit score suffered under mounting debt. It appeared he’d taken out a second mortgage on his house to finance the launch of his shish-kebab stand.
I added Serhan’s file to the stack on the desk and pulled Stacy and Karla’s wine shop file from the stack. Their file also contained copies of their credit reports and booth rental agreements, none of which raised any red flags. The lease application indicated that both women had held only part-time jobs prior to opening their wine shop. My guess was they’d sacrificed their careers in order to be home with their children until the kiddos had left the nest, then had decided to open the wine store. While Karla had served as a substitute teacher prior to opening the shop, Stacy had done stints as a reservations agent for South
west Airlines, a hotel desk clerk, and a bank teller. Neither had retail experience, which probably explained why their wine store was in trouble. A quick criminal background check indicated that both had clean records.
Vu’s background check was significantly more interesting. The man had a felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance, as well as a misdemeanor conviction for discharging fireworks within the Fort Worth city limits. He’d pled guilty to both charges. Somewhat shocking. I’d had only brief interactions with the man, but he seemed like a hardworking, gentlemanly, grandfatherly type. Again, the report was short on details, though it provided dates for the offenses and convictions. Vu had been arrested for both violations on January 23, 2012. He’d been convicted of both offenses three months later and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and serve six months probation.
Detective Jackson returned to the office, holding up a copy of the U-Haul rental form. “Got a name, number, and address here.” She dropped back into the rolling chair and pulled the file folders over in front of her. “Find anything interesting?”
“Mr. Tran has two convictions. A fireworks violation and drug conviction.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“Well, then. I’ll need to pay him a little visit, won’t I?”
I told Detective Jackson that Ricky’s documentation was questionable, though Scott’s checked out on its face.
“I’ll talk to Ricky.” She glanced at the schedule the mall manager had provided to her. “Looks like he’ll be in tomorrow. What about Irving and Serhan?”
“Nothing on Irving,” I said. “Serhan checks out, too. I feel bad for the guy, though. It looks like he took out a second mortgage to finance the launch of his booth.”
It was unclear when the courtyard would be reopened. The loss of several days’ income could be devastating to a small business like his. If the bomb caused a long-term reduction in traffic at the mall, Serhan’s dream of expanding his food booth into a chain could go down the toilet.
Jackson’s eyes roamed over the rental application, the booth lease, and the credit report. “Good eye, Luz. We may have found a motive.”
“Excuse me?”
“If Serhan was having financial problems, he might have planted the bomb as an excuse for breaking his lease.”
What Jackson said made sense logically, but it just didn’t sit right with me. Serhan seemed proud of his booth, small as it might be, and he had big plans for the future. Even if the venture had yet to produce significant profits, I simply couldn’t see him jeopardizing the business he’d built. Unlike Stacy and her partner, who seemed to have opened their wine store on a whim and without proper experience or a solid business plan, Serhan had paid his dues working at other eateries, learned the trade before venturing out on his own. He’d also started relatively small, which posed less risk.
Jackson whipped out her cell phone and dialed a number. “Hi, Mr. Castleberry. Could you come to your office, please?” A short pause followed. “Thanks.” She ended the call and tossed her phone back onto the desk.
A rap sounded on the door a moment later.
“Come in!” Jackson called.
Castleberry stepped into his office, shutting the door behind him.
“Where do you keep the mall’s rental income records?” Jackson asked.
Castleberry gestured to his desktop computer.
Jackson stood and gave the man her seat, which was, in actuality, his seat. “Pull up the records for the Stick People stand.”
Castleberry logged on to his computer and into the bookkeeping program. Given that his assistant normally took care of the finances, it took Castleberry a minute or two to remember how to generate a report. “Here we go,” he said, lifting his fingers from the keyboard.
Jackson stepped up behind him to peer over his shoulder. I, in turn, stepped up behind her and peered over hers.
The report indicated that Serhan had been late on his rent twice in the last nine months but both times had made good on the rent plus late fees and interest within a week of the due date.
“That doesn’t look so bad,” I said.
Jackson grunted. “It doesn’t look so good, either.”
The detective asked Mr. Castleberry to print out the report and slid it into a folder. Her “thanks” was clearly as dismissive as it was grateful, and the mall manager took her word as his cue to leave the room.
Once the door had closed again, Jackson turned her eyes on me. “Got a name and address for the protestor?”
I pulled up the window on my laptop. “Check this out.”
Jackson looked over Sherry Lipscomb’s arrest record and offered a condemnatory “tsk-tsk” to the screen. “Sherry, Sherry, Sherry. You haven’t behaved yourself, have you?”
“Her husband has a record, too.” I pulled up Michael’s report next, then showed her the online newspaper report regarding his assault.
“Looks like we may have ourselves a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde here.”
Jackson noted the Lipscombs’ address on her pad and slid it back into the breast pocket of her shirt. “Time to make some house calls. As long as you’ll keep your mouth shut, you’re welcome to come with me.”
I nearly leaped out of my skin in excitement. “Really?”
“Really. Just remember, you’re only there to observe and learn.”
“Got it.” My nerves tingled with giddiness. I was going to be involved in an interrogation! Me, the rookie! How cool was that?
As the detective, Brigit, and I left the manager’s office together, I returned Mackey’s laptop to him. “Thanks.” Just because I despised every cell of his being didn’t mean I couldn’t be civil.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Where are you going?”
Jackson answered for me: “Out.”
In the lot, Jackson motioned for me and Brigit to climb into her car. “Might as well. I haven’t had time to vacuum the fur out yet.”
FORTY-ONE
FROM SERGEANT TO PRINCESS
Brigit
The backseat of the detective’s car was warm and stuffy, but at least the woman agreed to drive through Burger King so Megan could buy Brigit some dinner. Two all-beef patties, hold the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, and sesame-seed bun.
As the detective pulled out of the parking lot, Megan slid tab A into slot B to assemble the golden cardboard crown and slid it onto Brigit’s fluffy head. The dog was tempted to use her paw to push the thing off but decided against it when Megan showed her teeth and laughed. As Brigit had quickly learned after the two had been teamed up, when her partner was happy she tended to be more generous with the treats and more forgiving of Brigit’s misdeeds. Brigit had no immediate plans to chew up another pair of shoes, but why not keep her options open?
FORTY-TWO
YESTERDAY’S NEWS
The Rattler
He turned on the evening news, eager to hear the latest developments about the bombing investigation and aftermath. He knew his actions had scared shoppers away, but did the cops have any suspects? Had Fort Worth PD assigned a profiler to determine his motives? Had they found the clue he’d left for them?
To his shock and dismay, the evening news made no reference whatsoever to the event.
Only one day later and it’s as if it never happened.
He grew hot with rage. He wouldn’t let them get away with this next time. He needed the newscasters to help him spread his message. Of course the only way to stay in the headlines was to escalate his efforts. Mere property damage was not enough to get the public’s attention.
Next time, there would have to be injuries. Serious ones.
At least watching the news hadn’t been a total loss. Trish LeGrande had worn a low-cut blouse for her report tonight, giving viewers a generous view of her chest. He ogled her foot-wide breasts on the 60-inch high-def television, putting his face to the screen and pretending to motorboat them. Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh.
His fa
ther walked into the den. “My God, Son! What the hell are you doing?”
FORTY-THREE
TAKE A HIKE
Megan
Using my phone’s GPS, I navigated while Jackson drove. Our first stop was the home of Vance Ulster, the man who’d rented the U-Haul.
Ulster lived in a ranch home in the Wedgwood area, not far from Wedgwood Baptist Church, the site of a 1999 mass shooting by a deranged man who killed four teens and three adult members of the church ministerial team before turning the gun on himself. I’d been only ten years old at the time and desperate to make sense of the senseless violence. I couldn’t, of course. No one could. For months afterward, I’d been terrified to attend mass, scrunching down in the pew to make myself as small a target as possible, wondering how my parents would shelter their five children should someone with a gun target our congregation. I feared they wouldn’t be able to protect us all. I also feared they’d save our lives but die in the effort.
No child should have to live with such terror.
Of course, even then Texans were familiar with mass gun violence. Hell, we practically invented it. In 1966, a shooter ascended the tower at the University of Texas in Austin with multiple rifles and a sawed-off shotgun, proceeding to shoot seventeen people to death. While that particular incident occurred before my birth, many others had taken place during my lifetime. A 1991 mass shooting at a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen left twenty-three dead. The massacre held the record of deaths incurred in a shooting rampage until the incident at Virginia Tech in 2007. In 1993, an ATF raid at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco resulted in the shooting deaths of four federal agents and six members of the weapon-stockpiling sect, with eighty more of the group’s members dying when the compound caught fire later after a prolonged standoff. In 2009, violence returned to Killeen when a member of the Army turned on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, killing thirteen.