“You have a lot of making up for what you did to me in New Orleans, but I think you know that. You called me back, so I know you want it. But you’re going to need to tell me you’re sorry first. I want to hear it. Say you’re sorry, Julia.”
“Sure, I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear,” Julia said, and beckoned Tillerman closer as if she was going to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry for nothing, asshole. Where’s Charlotte?”
Tillerman had just enough time for an expression of surprise to register on his face when Navarro was on him. Navarro grabbed Tillerman’s right arm with one hand and the back of Tillerman’s hand with the other and easily slammed Tillerman against a brick wall. Tillerman, now prone and angry, like a vicious little dog being overpowered and emasculated by a mastiff, seethed as he tried to break free.
“What the hell is this?” Tillerman asked as Navarro started to frisk him.
“He’s armed,” Navarro said, and pulled a small handgun out of the rear waistband of Tillerman’s pants.
The side of Tillerman’s face was pushed up against the brick wall in Julia’s direction, and she witnessed something dark and hateful pass across his eyes as they narrowed in focus on her. “You did this. Nobody embarrasses me. Nobody.”
“Shut up. You say one more word, your head is going through the brick wall,” Navarro said.
“I’m calling the cops,” Tillerman said.
“We are the cops,” Navarro answered.
Navarro snapped a pair of handcuffs over Tillerman’s wrists as Russell, LaBeau, and Washington circled the suspect.
“I hear you like to rough up women. I have a problem with that. A big problem,” Navarro said. “All I can say is that you’re in a world of trouble.”
CHAPTER 27
Navarro watched the suspect pace back and forth in short, angry steps in the precinct interview room as he studied Tillerman through the two-way mirror.
Navarro fixed his thoughts on the half-dozen photographs he had seen of Tillerman’s estranged wife and ex-girlfriend, chronicled evidence of the vicious beatings Tillerman gave to the women. The pictures the Miami PD had shared included images of the doctor’s former girlfriend with a black eye and a dislocated jaw—punishment she said Tillerman had inflicted on her because he thought she was cheating on him. The estranged wife’s photos were just as bad. The woman had sustained severe lacerations on her face from a glass Tillerman had thrown at her and a deep purple bruise on her collarbone, where Tillerman had pressed his thumb down and left it there as he backed her against the wall and demanded to know why she had come home an hour late from work.
Navarro burned the images of the women in his head. What Tillerman had done to them would fuel him and help keep his edge when he grilled Tillerman in the box.
Tillerman sat down hard in the chair and sneered in Navarro’s direction, the doctor having been arrested enough times to likely know he was being watched. Navarro studied Tillerman repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists, and Navarro felt his own anger building inside him.
A weak man who abused women and took sadistic pleasure in belittling them through words or fists was the lowest form of life to Navarro. Not to mention the fact that the asshole stewing in the next room had once been overly possessive of his Julia, who had the smarts at a young age to leave Tillerman before things undoubtedly would’ve escalated.
Navarro didn’t think holding on to anger was necessarily a bad thing when he interviewed a subject, as long as he could contain it and not go too far. He flashed to the look of humiliation on the women’s faces in the photos. Part of Navarro wanted to throw Tillerman against the wall and beat him until he was nothing but pulp and bone, leaving Tillerman the one who was terrified and suffering this time.
But he knew a dark desire like that could be a dangerous and seductive drug. If acted on, it could turn him into a person like the monster he was trying to take down.
“I think it’s safe to say Tillerman has some anger issues,” Washington said as she entered the room with Russell.
“Is he on something? Even sitting, Tillerman can’t keep still,” Navarro said.
Tillerman’s feet beat the floor in a rapid pace and his now-splayed fingers tapped incessantly on the interview table in front of him.
“Patrick and Villanova just got back from the Marriott. Our fine officers found a virtual pharmacy in Tillerman’s hotel room,” Russell said.
“Judge Palmer did us a huge favor and fast-tracked a no-knock warrant to search Tillerman’s room. Tillerman has a permit for the gun, but even if we don’t have enough right now to pin him for Charlotte and the two murdered joggers, not to mention an attempted murder and abduction charge for Christy King, we can hold him for drug possession.”
“Patrick and Villanova found a couple of grams of cocaine and some Ecstasy inside a toothbrush travel holder, along with enough Percocet to kill an elephant in his toiletry bag,” Russell said. “I wish I had one more present for you, but I went through the Standby’s receipts again from last night, and there weren’t any charges from Tillerman. I sent a photo of Tillerman to the waitresses and bartender who were working. One girl thought she might have seen him, but she said she couldn’t be sure because the place was packed. And if it was him, he didn’t stick around very long.”
“Did you check to see if the Marriott had tapes of Tillerman coming and going last night?” Navarro asked.
“Patrick and Villanova are watching the tapes now,” Russell said.
“All right. I want you to go in there with shock and awe, I just got an update on the crew doing the surveillance on the churches, and there’s still no sign of Charlotte Fisher. Tillerman’s a doctor and obviously smart. I don’t want him to lawyer up, so hit him with the fact that we know he was with Charlotte a few days ago at the other bar,” Washington said.
“No problem. We’ve got this covered, Chief,” Navarro said.
Navarro and Russell entered the interview room, with Russell taking a seat directly across from Tillerman. Ray remained standing on purpose, to show a position of dominance.
“This is an outrage, an absolute insult,” Tillerman said. He started to stand up, but Navarro put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down in his seat. “Get your hands off me. Do you have any idea who I am?”
“An asshole?” Russell asked.
“I’m a physician. Is that too much for your tiny cop brains to comprehend? I get it. Julia knows you from her beat and she set me up. That bitch. She’s going to pay for this.”
“Let me make myself clear. If you threaten Julia, I’ll personally make sure you’ll never walk again,” Navarro said.
“So, Alex Tillerman, M.D., we already know you’re no choirboy. You’ve been arrested twice for domestic assault, and we found your drug stash in your room,” Russell said. “Your head is sweatier than a fat guy who decided to take up jogging, and the way you’re moving, I’m guessing you did a couple of lines of coke before your meet-up with Julia this morning.”
“I’m going to sue your ass. You searched my room illegally.”
“We got a no-knock warrant,” Navarro said.
“The search of your room was completely by the book. We have a witness who can place you at the Standby last night,” Russell bluffed. “Where’s Charlotte Fisher?”
“Who’s Charlotte Fisher? What the hell are you talking about?”
“We have multiple people who saw you with Charlotte three nights ago at the Sugar House. You met her, she fit your type, and you picked her up last night outside the Standby. Did you kill her the same way you murdered April Young and Heather Burns?” Navarro asked. “Things aren’t looking good for you, Tillerman. We’ve got two dead women and one missing who was seen with you, not to mention the bookseller you stalked and then tried to pick up in Royal Oak. I have a question I’ve been trying to figure out. Why do you dress the women up to look like Julia? Was she the one who got away and needed to be punished?”
Tillerman swatted a
way a drop of sweat from his forehead and retracted back from the table. “I don’t know what kind of lies Julia fed you about me to try and jam me up with whatever happened to these women, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m innocent.”
Navarro pulled a picture of Charlotte out from a manila envelope tucked underneath his arm and pushed it across the table in front of Tillerman. “Don’t bother trying to tell me you don’t know her.”
Tillerman studied the picture and then steepled his fingers together and pressed them to his lips. “Okay, I saw her. She was cute. I talked to her at the bar of the Sugar House a couple nights ago. That was it. I was going to buy her a drink, but I could tell she wanted me to chase after her, and that’s not something I do. She went back to her table with her friends, and I didn’t follow her. I don’t run after women, and she was maybe a seven on a scale of one to ten. Small up top, so she lost points for that. Don’t look at me that way,” Tillerman told Navarro. “You’re a man. You can’t tell me you don’t do the exact same thing. We all do. I left and went to another bar. I never saw that girl again.”
“Where were you at eight-thirty last night?” Navarro asked.
“I have a question for you. Why is that bitch Julia trying to connect me to this? She should be the one in here for giving false information to the police, not me.”
“Last warning. You call Julia that word one more time, and your face is going through the window. Do we have an understanding? You think I was rough on you before in the coffee shop, but that was me playing nice,” Navarro said.
“All right,” Tillerman said as he backed down. “I was at the Standby last night, but only for a few minutes. I was there maybe around seven-thirty or eight. I’d need to check my phone. I was planning to hang at the Standby for a while, but I got a text from a woman I met the night before. I met her back at the Sugar House and then we went to my hotel room. She was there all night until three. I never let the sluts stay over until morning.”
“I need the name and number of the woman you were with last night,” Navarro said, and shoved a notebook and pen across the table to Tillerman.
“If you’re trying to pin me for the murders of those women, call the hospital where I work. Anthony Dejardin is the hospital administrator. He’ll tell you when I was working.”
“I’m sure old Anthony can’t wait for us to call him. Another public relations nightmare for a hospital that made the mistake of having a drugged-up woman beater and killer on its payroll,” Russell said.
“I didn’t kill anybody. Those are lies Julia made up. I don’t know why she’s doing this to me.”
“If all your convenient alibis work out, explain this. Why were you at the coffee shop this morning with a gun?” Navarro asked. “Did you plan on using it on Julia? Maybe you wanted to beat her, like your other women, for walking away and embarrassing you when she dumped you and then didn’t respond quick enough to your overtures when you saw her again. You don’t seem like the type of guy who takes rejection well. I saw the photos of how you roughed up your wife and ex-girlfriend.”
“Those were lies told by hysterical women who came to their senses. If you talked to the cops in Miami, they already told you that my ex-girlfriend dropped the charges. Same thing with the cops in Wyandotte, where I used to live. My ex-wife rescinded her bogus accusations against me, too. There was no case and no threat to my physician’s license, and you better not turn this into an issue for me now. I carry a gun because Detroit is a crime-infested shithole. If you knew how to do your job, I wouldn’t need a weapon.”
“Since you hate Detroit so much, let me do you a favor. I’ll make a call to your employer to let them know you’re high on something right now,” Navarro said. “I’m also guessing Harper University Hospital doesn’t know about your previous arrests.”
“I wasn’t convicted, and those charges were dropped,” Tillerman said. “Those were witch hunts, just like this is. You make an issue with my employer, I’ll see you in court.”
“Why did you want to meet Julia?” Russell asked. “Were you hoping you two would hook up?”
“Sure. That’s not a crime. I’m newly single. And I wanted her to apologize for what she did to me. She’s the only woman who ever got away with treating me like a dog. I saw her in the restaurant. She looked good and wasn’t wearing a ring anymore, so I wanted to score. Plus she treated me like shit, so I was going to make her pay for it in the bedroom. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I’d screw her blue, enjoy some rough sex, and then I’d tell her to get the hell out. That’s all I wanted. That bitch is going to regret this.”
“Last chance. You say one more word about Julia, you’re going to be the one who’s in regret,” Navarro said.
Tillerman studied Navarro and then nodded his head as if he finally understood.
“Ah, I get it. You and Julia have a thing going. Nice,” he said, and then banged his fists together like he was simulating two people having sex. “Does she still do that thing with her tongue? You can thank me. I taught her that.”
“That’s it,” Navarro said. He lunged at Tillerman and yanked him up by the collar from his chair.
“Easy, Ray,” Russell said. “Are you always such an idiot, Tillerman, or is it just the drugs?”
Washington entered the room, and with just one powerful movement of her finger, she made Navarro drop Tillerman back down to his chair.
“I’m sorry, Chief,” Navarro said. “I didn’t mean to lose my cool.”
“Navarro, Russell, come with me,” Washington said, and led the two officers into the hallway.
“Patrick and Villanova just got through looking at the video security footage from the Marriott. Right now, it looks like Tillerman’s story is checking out. He was on the tape leaving the hotel lobby at seven PM, and then again later entering the hotel and going up in an elevator with a woman who wasn’t Charlotte at eight forty-five last night. The woman was seen again on the tape, leaving the hotel at around three-fifteen AM, and then Tillerman isn’t seen again on the footage until nine AM when he left the hotel this morning.”
“We still need to check his alibis for the April Young and Heather Burns murders,” Navarro said.
“Already done. Corporal Smith just got off the phone with Harper University Hospital. The administrator confirmed Tillerman was working on both those mornings when the female joggers were picked up,” Washington said. “Apparently, Julia called the hospital right before we did and got the same information. I don’t want her to get ahead of us on the investigation, Ray. If she tips someone off before we can get to them and they clam up, that could hurt the case.”
“I understand. And Julia realizes that. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the investigation. Since you wouldn’t let her be part of the interview, knowing Julia, she probably wanted to keep searching for the suspect if she ruled out Tillerman. I can talk to her, but I can’t tell Julia what to do,” Navarro said.
“All right. We can hold Tillerman on the drugs, but we can’t charge him for being a misogynist ass,” Washington said.
“I want to jam him up on the drug charges then. It would be his first drug possession conviction, so the judge would likely suspend his sentence to probation. But a couple of nights in the Detroit Detention Center might make him think twice about hitting a woman again,” Navarro said. “We’ve still got nothing on Charlotte.”
“We look back at the case and we figure out how all those women are connected to Julia. Now go break the news to your little friend,” Washington said, and motioned toward the two-way mirror and Tillerman.
“I want a lawyer. Now,” Tillerman said to Navarro and Russell as they went in for round two.
“Your choice. We’re still verifying your alibis. But you’ve got a problem that’s not going away. We found drugs in your hotel room. The Ecstasy alone will cost you up to ten years in jail and a fifteen-thousand-dollar fine,” Navarro said.
“Those drugs weren’t mine. I was holding the
m for a friend, the girl I was with last night.”
“You may have a medical degree, but you’re not smart. I can’t tell you how many low-life druggies have fed me that line,” Navarro said. He got up from his chair to leave, but turned back around at the last minute to face Tillerman. “You should’ve listened to Doug Prejean and never bothered Julia again when he confronted you in New Orleans.”
“Who the hell is Doug Prejean?” Tillerman asked.
“Don’t play dumb with me. Prejean is the NOLA cop who met you at the airport when you tried to harass Julia after you tracked her down in New Orleans. Prejean said he scared you straight. If that didn’t stop you, this better. I’m going to be watching you from here on out. If you bother Julia or any other woman ever again, you’re going to have to deal with me.”
“I’m freakin’ shaking in my shoes right now,” Tillerman said, trying to feign bravado, but he scooted his chair back a few inches away from Navarro. “I don’t know who this Prejean person is, but you better check your sources. I was going to fly down to see Julia, but I never got on the plane. I called Julia and told her about my plan, but then I got a message from her telling me if I showed up, she’d call the cops. I knew Julia was covering the crime beat, and she said in her message that she told a police friend I was harassing her. Let me make myself clear. I never hit Julia. Not once. I thought about it, but I never did. I didn’t want to deal with any police problems, because I’m a doctor, so I never got on the plane. That Prejean person, he lied to you.”
CHAPTER 28
Julia entered the Wayne County parks-and-rec gym on Grandville Avenue, the place where she was to meet Charlotte’s ex-husband, Joe Perkins.
The clipped sound of Julia’s heels against the cement floor echoed down the long, empty hallway. She passed by the table still decorated with orange balloons and flyers announcing the opportunities for early junior rec tryouts in exchange for a wad of cash, and heard the thump of a single basketball hitting the hardwood floor of the court as she neared the gym.
You Fit the Pattern Page 25