by Lauren Carr
“What makes you think she did that?”
He gestured towards his cousin. “I’ll let Joshua Thornton, Hancock County’s prosecuting attorney, explain it to you.”
Nicki rolled her eyes in response to the introduction. “He has no authority here.”
“He doesn’t,” the man in the business suit said, “but we do.” He went on to introduce himself as Frank Burger, the county prosecutor for Columbiana County, in which Steubenville was located.
The woman, Judith Morgan, was his assistant. “You should listen to what Mr. Thornton has to say,” she advised the girl.
“Whatever.” Nicki sighed and gave another roll of her eyes.
Joshua told her, “The medical examiner found bits of foam in the hole you put in Heather’s head. After knocking her senseless with the gun you had taken from Billy, or been given, you used a pillow to muffle the shot when you killed her. Then, you swept the floor and dusted the furniture to get rid of the foam and your fingerprints. Forensics found evidence of carbon and gunshot residue on the pillow foam that you had vacuumed up, which proves that the room was cleaned after the shot was fired. The neighbor that you had borrowed the vacuum cleaner from turned it over to the police. She has seen you in the rooming house several times and will have no problem identifying you. Right before you left the room after cleaning it up, you planted a poem you had torn out of a book to make it look like a suicide. For all the work you did, you made too many mistakes.”
She shrugged and turned away from them to sip her drink.
Joshua stepped up close to her. “We found a suitcase with Heather’s clothes in the trunk of her car. Why would she have packed if she was going to shoot herself?”
“That suitcase was from another trip she had taken.”
“Like a weekend party that she had just been at? The one after the concert she was at while you were killing Billy and his lawyer? You wanted us to believe that Heather killed them, but she had an alibi that is as tight as it comes.”
“Then I guess someone else killed them.” She grinned wickedly at Mitch.
The bartender responded with a weak smile.
“It was you, Nicki,” Tad told her.
“Prove it,” she challenged them.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Joshua gestured to Tad, who stepped behind the bar and slipped a videotape into the VCR.
Hancock County’s prosecutor whirled her stool around to force her to watch it. “There was an ATM with a security camera across the street from Tori Brody’s condo, where Billy has been hiding out ever since we issued a warrant for his arrest. I don’t know if he told you that was where he was staying, or maybe you hunted him down. I assume you borrowed that car we see on the tape since you don’t have a car or a driver’s license.” Joshua looked at Mitch, who put up his hands and shook his head in a gesture of innocence.
“Can we take a look at your car or do we need to get a warrant?” Prosecutor Burger asked the bartender.
“You can’t get a warrant,” he objected. “I did nothing wrong. I know my rights.”
“We can get a warrant if we can prove probable cause.” Joshua gestured toward the television. An old Camaro pulled into the parking lot next to the condo. “Is that your car?” he asked him. “It looks just like the one out back, and according to the license plate, which is readable in the picture we had blown up from this tape, it is registered to you.”
Tad continued, “A man identifying himself as Billy called the Connor home on Saturday and left a message for Heather. Billy was killed Friday night. So it couldn’t have been him. The phone company says the call came from this bar.”
“Are we looking at two accessory charges? One after the fact and one before?” Joshua told him. “If you lured Heather to Billy’s room to be killed—”
“She told me it was a joke!” Mitch shouted.
Nicki giggled into her drink.
Joshua took the opportunity to ask Mitch, “Was that the first time Nicki borrowed your car?”
The bartender’s face turned white. “Why do you ask?”
“It matches the description of a vehicle seen in the vicinity when Grace Henderson was murdered.”
“What did you get me into, bitch?” The bartender turned to the doctor. “Look at my car. There was blood all over it after she took it Friday night. She didn’t even try to clean it out. She said that it was a dead dog she picked up after hitting it.”
“He was a dog!” Nicki snickered.
“And so you shot him like one.” Joshua pointed to the television.
She glanced up to see herself going through the door leading to the condo. “You can’t prove I went up to see Billy.”
“Oh, no?” Joshua slapped a picture onto the bar showing her helping a doubled over Billy out the door. “It’s a blowup of the security picture, even has the date and time recorded.”
He surmised, “Billy took up with his lawyer and moved out of the room at the boardinghouse where you had been living with him. You went up to Tori Brody’s condo to confront one or the both of them. I think you took the gun to scare her. He grabbed it, and it went off. The bullet went through him and killed her. He was still alive, and you helped him into his car. You left your bloody fingerprints in the elevator. He died before you could get him to the hospital. So you hid the car, moved him into the driver’s seat so no one would know you were there, and then hitchhiked back to the car you borrowed, getting his blood in it, and came back.”
Nicki scoffed when Joshua paused. “You think you’re so smart.”
“I think the idea of framing Heather for the two murders came to you the next day. Since you hid Billy, you had some time, but you were racing against the clock. You got your friend here—” Joshua indicated Mitch. “—to call and leave Heather a cryptic message, which told her that they would run off together. She raced to his room, where you killed her with the gun you knew everyone was looking for, and you tried to make it look like a suicide.” He asked, “Did Grace and Heather even know about you and Billy?”
She answered with a shake of her head. “I was the one who crawled in through his window after they went home to their families in their big houses.”
Tad recalled, “You told me that Billy had no intention of leaving with Grace.”
“Heather thought he did. She was so upset that her mom paid me to get rid of her.”
Joshua could barely contain his shock. “Margo Connor paid you to get rid of Grace?”
She said mockingly, “We can’t have little Heather upset. She wanted Billy. So, her mom told her that if she could find someone to get rid of Grace, then she would pay for it. Heather asked me and, I had the gun, so I said okay.”
Joshua further explained, “And since you lived with Billy, you had access to his trench coat, bandanna, and sunglasses to disguise yourself in.” He went on to ask, “Did you intend to frame Billy, or was that by accident?”
“I guess I wanted to send him a message, but the bastard was too stupid to get it.”
“How much did Margo Connor pay you to kill Grace to clear the way for her daughter?” Joshua asked.
Nicki held up her hand with the ruby ring on it.
“Did she personally give that to you?”
“Heather took me to her mother’s office, and Mrs. Connor showed me this jewelry box with all these rocks in it. She told me I could have my pick and she would mail it to me after Grace was dead. I had to do it on that day after school so Heather could go over to Billy’s to get an alibi for the both of them. A couple of days after I blew Grace away, I got the ring here at the bar in the mail.”
“Why did Margo pay you with a ring?” Tad wanted to know.
“Because she could blame her maid for stealing it and get reimbursed for it by the insurance company.” Joshua admired Margo’
s savvy maneuver. “She got her insurance company to pay for a hit.”
Tad asked Nicki, “You knew about both Heather and Grace. What was so different about Tori Brody that you felt compelled to confront her?”
“Billy knew that I had no place to go, but he didn’t give a shit. He had this big bitch lawyer to live off of. He didn’t need me anymore.”
Joshua told her, “But he paid for an extra thirty days for the room in order to give you time to make other arrangements.”
For the first time, tears came to Nicki’s eyes. “What other arrangements? I had no one. Billy and I have been together since forever! It was always him and me! Even when Grace and Heather were scratching each other’s eyes out, it was Billy and me. But then this rich bitch comes along and—” Tears streamed down her face. She caught her breath. “I asked him, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ He said, ‘Do whatever you have to do.’ So I did.”
Chapter Twenty-One
At the State Line Lounge, Herb Duncan sat on a stool at the end of the bar and drank his beer. He and his wife were moving into their middle-class home this weekend. When he got home, they were going to throw out all their old stuff to buy new.
“Hey, Herb,” Willie Semple called from where he leaned against the bar a couple of stools away.
Willie hung around construction sites. He had been on permanent work disability since he fell onto a foundation and hurt his back. Unable to work, he lived in a double-wide trailer in a mobile home park out on the racetrack road and drank as much of his earnings from the state as he could.
“Hey, Willie,” Herb greeted him. “I haven’t seen you for a while. Have a beer.”
“If you’re buying, I’m drinking.” Willie perched himself up on the bar stool and ordered a draft. While shooting Herb a rotten-toothed grin, he punched him in the arm. “Hey! Have you heard the latest?”
“About what?”
Their beers arrived. The two men gulped down a couple of swallows before Willie wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “About what really happened to Rex. I heard that it was a professional hit.”
Herb chuckled.
“From a guy out of town,” Willie said. “I got it all figured out who killed Rex Rollins. This guy I know at this place out in Pittsburgh that is run by the mob, he knows these people, and they got a call today from Mrs. Connor.”
“A call about what?”
“She said she needed someone to do a little cleanup. You know what I think? I think Connor has been laundering money for the mob in her businesses and that Rex found out about it. So she had this pro come in to take him out, but he told someone before they got him and that someone has been blackmailing her. That’s why she called her friends at the mob again to come in and get rid of the friend Rex blabbed to.”
Willie paused before taking another gulp of his beer. “You remember what a big mouth Rex had. There’s no telling who he told what. And, hell, the police can’t find out who killed him. They haven’t got a clue. It worked with a pro once. Why not do it again?”
“So my client’s truck was in the State Line parking lot?” Ben Stiller, a hard-working man who was pretty good at getting his clients out of trouble, argued with the county prosecutor after Sheriff Sawyer arrested Herb Duncan two days later. “He’s a regular. Everyone saw him drinking at the bar. That’s what people do there.”
“He was the only one to leave right after Rollins did,” Joshua countered.
“He was sitting in his truck smoking a cigarette when I left.” Herb said. “I told the police that.”
“I know. You told both the detective and the sheriff that a couple of times. It is noted in your statement,” the prosecutor said. “Funny, there weren’t any cigarette butts in the truck.”
Herb appeared shaken.
“There were no butts in the truck or in the ashtray. Rex did not smoke in his truck. It was a habit after years of his wife forbidding him from smoking in the house or the truck because she doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes.” Joshua pointed to Herb while he told his lawyer, “That proves your client is lying. His truck with its temporary tags was seen in front of the motel the night of Bella Polk’s murder. He beat an old woman to death. That’s two murders.”
“He hardly knew that old lady. Why would he want to kill her?”
“Margo Connor paid him to kill her.”
The defense attorney challenged him, “Can you prove that?”
“The week after Rex was killed, your client was hired as foreman over two men with more experience. Everyone has noticed that. Margo Connor also paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his trailer and property that the state assessed at being worth nothing more than five thousand.”
“I guess Connor isn’t as good a businesswoman as we thought,” Ben said. “My client simply took advantage of a good offer. Who wouldn’t? If I was offered five times the value of my house, I’d take it, too. No questions asked. That doesn’t mean I committed murder.” He asked, “To get back to the Polk murder, why would Connor care to have an old lady killed?”
“Because the old lady tried to blackmail her,” Joshua said.
“With what?”
“Ask your client.”
Herb said nothing.
The defense attorney turned back to his adversary. “You have yet to show us any proof.”
Joshua responded with the question, “What was Bella Polk’s saliva doing on your client’s hand?”
“What?” Ben asked.
Herb was open-mouthed at the revelation.“Your client went to his doctor two days after the murder of Rex Rollins’ landlady,” Joshua said. He had what the doctor states looked like a bite mark on his hand that had become infected. The medical examiner reported that Bella Polk’s teeth were chipped in the assault that killed her. Your client’s doctor took a sample of the infection for analysis to find the source so he would know how best to treat it. The infection was determined to be one that is commonly found in the human mouth. After we went to him with a warrant, the sample he took was sent to our labs, and we found that there is a match between the germs found in your client’s wound and Bella Polk’s mouth, which puts his fist in her mouth.”
Pleased with Herb’s stunned expression, Joshua added, “We can get a court order to have an impression of that bite mark taken from his hand to match with her mouth.”
“I’ll get that evidence suppressed,” Ben predicted.
The prosecutor added, “We also have his fingerprints on the bullets in the gun that killed Rollins.” He grinned at Herb. “You wore gloves when you shot him. Then you left the gun, which you knew would not be traced back to you because you picked it up from a thief. But you weren’t wearing gloves when you loaded it. We got some beautiful partials on the bullets and cartridges inside the gun.”
Herb’s dismayed expression told his lawyer that the prosecutor was on target. “We have to talk.”
Without a word, Joshua stepped out into the hall. Curt was waiting for him. He had been watching the match through the two-way mirror.
“Do you think he’s going to turn on Margo?” the sheriff asked.
“He will if he believed Willie Semple and saw that trooper wearing a black trench coat parked in the unmarked black sedan outside the construction site.”
Curt chuckled. “You can be evil sometimes.”
Ben Stiller opened the door and gestured for Joshua to come inside. Herb was sitting at the table with a cocky grin. He had something the prosecutor wanted.
“You give us complete immunity and protection from Margo Connor, and we’ll give her to you.”
“No deal.” Joshua stepped to the door. “See you in court.”
“You can’t get her without my client. You have to prove motive for her wanting to hire my client to kill Rollins. We can give that to you in black and white.”
Herb puffed out his chest. “I have Rollins’ book.”
With surprise they watched as Joshua opened the door. The sheriff stepped inside.
“Book him for two counts of first-degree murder,” the prosecutor ordered.
Curt directed Herb to stand up and turn around so he could handcuff him. Herb looked for help from his lawyer.
“He’s bluffing,” Ben assured him. “He needs you and that book in order to get Connor.”
After two days of waiting in the cell with no protection from the professional assassin he heard rumors that Margo had hired, Herb told his lawyer to take whatever deal Thornton had to offer. He turned over the manuscript and made a full confession in exchange for protection.
Rex Rollins had dropped out of school as soon as he got his driver’s license. Knowing this, Joshua did not expect the manuscript to be a masterpiece. However, while reading the tome in front of his fireplace after his children had gone to bed with dreams of the Thanksgiving turkey dancing through their heads, he was was surprised to discover that the author did know how to weave a story.
Rex did not know the first thing about grammar. The sentences were either run-ons or fragments. He spelled phonetically. Also, if he had succeeded in getting it published, the lawsuits for libel would have been monstrous. He said what he thought about everyone and didn’t change anything to protect anyone’s identity.
Once Joshua got past those flaws, Rex took him into the life of a reluctant, paid assassin who did it all in an attempt to win the love of his wife.
Rex loved Phyllis.
Unfortunately, she would have nothing to do with him.
Then, Rex wrote, one day he was fixing the Wheelers’ leaky toilet when Tricia came home from school. She didn’t notice him under the toilet when she walked past the bathroom to go into her bedroom.
When he heard her shriek, he looked out into the hallway and saw Tricia, her purse still on her shoulder, backing out of the bedroom into the living room and Doug Barlow, with wild-looking eyes, coming out. He held a gun in one hand and was holding out a necklace to her with the other.