Shades of Deception

by Charlie Hudson

  A custom design for the back yard had been the wedding present from a landscape architect who ran track with Bev during middle and high school. It was a phased plan, and in another year, they would have a covered terrace rather than the current exposed rectangular coral-stone expanse. The deep blue market umbrella above the round eucalyptus wood table was pleasant for now and in the twilight, they were enjoying tiny white lights lining the inside frame of the umbrella. The sturdy red hibiscus in the right corner had been artfully trimmed and flowering vines of yellow Allamanda, purple passion vine, and coral honeysuckle were taking over the hurricane fence as if they had always been there. Like many of the other houses, crushed shells substituted for grass and a solar-powered green urn bubbler fountain was to their left. A simple terra cotta chimera with two weathered Adirondack chairs gave them a favorite spot for star gazing.

  Kyle set the second bottle into the insulated aquamarine acrylic wine bucket. He held his glass before taking a sip. “It is a shame at her age. Funny though — I don’t mean ha-ha or ironic funny — it reminded me of this bizarre case we had in Chicago. Pills mixed in with booze though.”

  Bev cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “It was a young woman who was a little older — closer to thirty. Lived in a decent neighborhood and apartment. One of those deals where she lived in a fairly tight radius. She worked at a bank close to her apartment. She wasn’t a big party girl, but did Happy Hour with friends once or twice a week, went out for dinner — normal stuff. She didn’t show up one morning, which wasn’t like her, and didn’t answer her phone or text. Her supervisor didn’t want to get her into trouble and knew one of her best friends. She called to see if maybe she had some idea of what was going on. She didn’t, but she was at the apartment often enough to be at least familiar with the super. She went over and explained the situation. The super liked the woman — Sarah Benden — so he took it seriously and when they’d tried the phone again and pounded on the door with no response, they went in.”

  He paused for a drink. “There were several similarities to the scene you described. Door was locked and no sign anyone else had been in the apartment. The woman was on the couch, television volume low on some classic movie channel. Bottle of an over-the-counter sleep aid on the end table and one empty whiskey glass on the floor under the coffee table. Scotch on the kitchen counter was nearly empty. Definitely dead.”

  “Why on earth do you remember all these details?”

  “Because this turned out to be one of the strangest cases we ever prosecuted and one we would have missed.”

  Bev raised her eyebrows. “So, you’re talking homicide?”

  “Yeah, but there was no way it looked like anything other than accidental or suicide with no note. Have you worked any suicides?”

  Bev shook her. “Thank God, no. Well, unless you subscribe to the theory of a certain number of single car accidents as actually suicide. If you mean clear cut suicide cases, not so far and I’d just as soon keep it that way.”

  “Yeah, those can be really tough. Anyway, nothing looked suspicious. Interview of the friend didn’t support the idea of depression though and she couldn’t remember Sarah having ever discussed needing to take something for sleep. Also said she didn’t know of any particular stress she was under and certainly hadn’t seen indication of depression. According to everyone local interviewed, Sarah was a pretty ordinary, pleasant person with no current significant other. The break-up she’d had a couple of months before was apparently mutual. Nobody they talked to knew about any plans she’d had for the evening.”

  “You said everyone local,” Bev pointed out.

  “Right. Sarah’s older sister, Lenore, lived in Cleveland — was some kind of executive in one of the biotech firms there. The sisters were pretty close and Lenore said point blank the whole thing didn’t make sense.”

  “What whole thing?”

  “Sarah mixing pills with booze. She said to start with, it wasn’t likely Sarah was taking them and if she was, she sure as hell wouldn’t wash them down with scotch. Said she wouldn’t even take aspirin after drinking. When Sarah was fifteen, a close friend committed suicide with pills and it really tore her up.” Kyle shifted the chair, the wooden legs scraping against the stone. “The autopsy report came back with a pretty high dosage in her system and well over the blood alcohol limit, so the view was the sister didn’t know her as well as she thought.”

  Bev was beginning to be intrigued. “And?”

  “With no grounds to believe it was suicide, the file was closed as an accident. Most likely scenario was she probably took a couple of pills, was drinking maybe more than usual for whatever reason, forgot she’d taken the pills, had another dose. Happens all the time.”

  Bev nodded.

  “The sister was at least sort of understanding with the official reaction, but she wasn’t backing down. She told the police detective they’re still wrong, and hired a private detective. A reputable guy — was a good cop who got crossways with an asshole of a supervisor and took early retirement. He’d never made detective on the force but had a hell of an eye for detail and was the pit bull type when he took a case. Like I said, Sarah’s apartment wasn’t far from where she worked and it was in a neighborhood with shopping, bars, and restaurants all within three or four blocks. You know the kind — you have a couple of favorite hangouts and those are the ones you frequent.”

  “Sure,” Bev said, thinking of the Scarlet Macaw and how few of the many good places in Verde Key they didn’t go to simply because it wasn’t their routine.

  “For Sarah, there were a total of four — two were her regulars and the others were once a month or so. The detective makes the rounds and in one of the some-time restaurants, the bartender recognized the photo. Didn’t really remember her name — he hadn’t been working there long and they had a group come in that night which meant he was busier than usual. He did remember a guy had started talking with her and was buying her drinks. She seemed to be fine with it. Thinks she had probably three drinks, but he got called to the other end of the bar and wasn’t the one who cashed them out. He can’t say for sure if they left together or not. All he could say for sure was she didn’t use a credit card.”

  “As we know, most bars have at least one barfly who tends to pay attention to everything and this place was no different. The detective worked that angle and found out the guy in question with Sarah had been in almost every night that week. He didn’t do anything in particular to be noticed except the regular patron said he was coming on to women who fit the same physical profile. That was nothing unusual for a bar scene. Said the guy was never pushy, but Sarah was the only one he’d spent extra time with and they did indeed leave together. He also said Sarah seemed a little wobbly. Not falling down or anything — just not completely steady — leaning into the guy kind of deal. Even though the general description of the guy wasn’t a lot to go on, it was something new.”

  Bev noticed Kyle’s mouth twitch down into a small frown before he continued. “That put a new spin on the situation for the detective and he went back to re-canvass the apartment residents. You also know how that works. Cops go through with an initial canvass, talk to whoever they can and might leave cards for people who aren’t there. For something that doesn’t appear to be foul play, follow-up doesn’t happen unless some piece of critical information is brought up. The private investigator was well aware of this and he didn’t stop until he actually made contact with everyone. Most were a bust — until he got a resident who’d left town for about a week on the day Sarah was found. If a card had been left for him by the police, he didn’t get it and by the time he returned, coverage in the papers was over. A neighbor told him what happened, but everyone was calling it an accident. It wasn’t until the private detective got to him and did the, ‘Do you remember anything at all, no matter how small’ drill and focused on the date that the guy did a, ‘Hey, w
ait a minute,’ bit. He’d been out later than normal and was coming into the apartment building a little after ten o’clock. He was looking down at some mail he’d taken out of his box and nearly collided with a guy coming out of the elevator. He didn’t recognize him as a tenant and they didn’t exchange more than ‘Hey, sorry,’ ‘No problem, have a good night,’ but he had this thought about how he resembled a man he’d once worked with.”

  “The description matched what the man in the bar had told the detective?”

  “Close enough and more importantly, it matched time of death.”

  Bev poured more wine in their glasses. “What came next?”

  “Got a sketch artist in for the neighbor and then the bar regular agreed he thought it was the same guy. Even though the detective knew this wasn’t likely to get the case reopened, the sister was convinced there was enough to prove her point and had plenty of money to extend the investigation. The private detective had seen his share of weird shit on the street and he had a friend who was a computer whiz. He set him to checking for any similar cases over the past year. That is drug and alcohol deaths written off as suicide or accidental.”

  Bev raised her eyebrows. “Drug overdose or suicide in a place the size of Chicago?”

  Kyle held up a hand. “I agree that’s not uncommon until you put in special parameters. When you get three other instances of women who are basically the same physical type and who didn’t seem to engage in risky behavior, it does make you wonder. The detective mapped out the incidents and drew what was literally an expanding radius. He got a photo of the first woman and backtracked to her neighborhood.”

  “Where he found a pattern?”

  “Yep, and since he had the sketch of the guy as well as the photo of her and the date of death, he located the bar where she was remembered. She was there often enough, her death stuck in the mind of one of the bartenders. They had security cameras around the door and parking lot. As happens, although the photo resolution of the two of them leaving wasn’t great, it was good enough. He got a print and the computer whiz was able to enhance the picture. Now the detective had a useable photo of the guy he could pass around and finally got a name and address in the same neighborhood of the first woman. At this stage, neither the detective nor the sister knew what they’d found other than too many coincidences to ignore.”

  “And nothing solid,” Bev said flatly.

  “True. The detective was able to find where the guy worked — he was a pharmacist by the way — name of Ellis Madden and the detective set the computer whiz on his trail.” Kyle paused. “Jesus, the amount of information out there if you know how to find it disturbs me even though this was a situation we never would have caught without it. A restraining order had been taken out by Madden’s ex-wife in the waning stage of their divorce. No children, marriage lasted less than two years. She said he was a control freak and refused to believe she wanted a divorce. The first woman who died fit the physical type of the ex-wife, lived in the neighborhood Madden had moved to, and she died about three months after the divorce was final. The circumstances were almost identical to Sarah’s death. The main difference was the first woman did have prescriptions for both an anti-depressant and sleeping pill.”

  “Making the call of accidental overdose easy.”

  Kyle nodded. “From an evidence perspective, this could still be considered as a series of coincidences. The private detective had enough pull with the police detective who’d closed the case to get him to look at everything they’d uncovered. He — as in the police detective — had the usual problem of a heavy workload, but the idea of this creep out there killing women with no chance of getting caught pissed him off. They had a female officer who was the general type this guy preferred, who was willing to go undercover, but they couldn’t devote resources to tracking him. The sister agreed to pay to keep up private surveillance. I don’t know what her bill must have been because it took almost a month before he seemed to be ready to strike again. Interestingly, he went back to the neighborhood of the second victim, to a different bar. Thank God he didn’t find anyone the first night. The private detective watched him hit on this one woman, but he had to give Madden credit. He wasn’t pushy — didn’t do anything to call attention to himself. For all appearances, he was a single guy making a move and politely accepting no for an answer. They sent the undercover in the next night. One of the trickiest parts of the whole operation was finding a vacant apartment close by they could use. Fortunately, there was one within walking distance and the landlord had agreed to help. The undercover pulled off the claim of being a lightweight when it came to drinking and acted like she needed an escort getting home. She invited him in, said she felt better and could use another drink. She showed him where the booze and glasses were and asked him to fix her a rum and tonic while she freshened up. Video was set up at a couple of different angles and caught him mixing a powder into hers. Police were already in the hallway and all they had to do was wait for him to give her the drink.”

  Bev nudged her empty wineglass toward the wine bucket. “Did he give them any trouble?”

  “No, and they found two other packets of powder plus a syringe and a bottle of over-the counter sleeping aids for each of the same powders he was carrying. Now comes the even creepier part.” Kyle exhaled deeply. “He wouldn’t talk at first, but didn’t invoke right to an attorney. They laid out the photographs of the dead women and his ex-wife and from what I understand, it was the old cliché of being like a dam bursting. Not an ounce of remorse, more like wanting admiration for how smart he’d been. The truth is he was damn smart. In the age group he targeted, cremation is preferred. Once the victim was unconscious, he could inject enough substance to be deadly. If there was already one or more bottles of something appropriate in the medicine cabinet that was even better. If not, he had the bottle to leave. When there’s no reason to expect foul play, checking for an injection site in an unlikely place isn’t generally going to happen. Body is cremated soon after the autopsy and there’s no way to retrace for evidence.”

  Bev’s eyes widened. “Damn, if that doesn’t all make sense.”

  Kyle grimaced. “Yeah and I gotta’ tell you, watching the video of him and being in the room with him later was about as weird as it gets. His attorney took a run at claiming entrapment, then tried diminished capacity. The only reason we were willing to make any kind of deal was because the families of the dead women didn’t want to go to trial if we didn’t have to. Other than Sarah’s sister, who had never believed the overdose story, they were in complete shock when they learned the truth.” Kyle refilled their glasses. “For a long time, I was convinced I’d never forget Madden. Life does go on though and until you told me about Deena, I’d shoved him into some mental filing cabinet.”

  Bev reached her hand to take his free one. “We’ve both seen and dealt with shit it’s better for us not to hang onto.”

  Kyle’s mouth curved into a half-smile this time. “True. And it seems like I’ve said the same to you a few times.”

  Bev leaned in for a quick kiss. “Which is one of the many reasons I love you.”

  Kyle’s voice lowered. “Okay — that’s enough work talk. How about we light a fire and finish the wine thinking about more pleasant things?”

  “I’m all for it,” she said, knowing her comment about not hanging on to cases was the correct thing to say. Actually, being able to compartmentalize wasn’t always easy to do. At least the Pierce case wasn’t something personally connected to her. The degree of sympathy she felt for her family and friends was no different than other accidents she’d worked.

  Crystal looked at the box and the large print and thought how they were the perfect metaphor for her mother. She was more than willing to take someone else’s cast-offs. Why should this be any different? Could they ever have anything in their crappy trailer that wasn’t from some damn yard sale or a thrift store? At least this time i
t was one of those deals where it was only a box full of stuff instead of something that needed to be fixed. How many times had she heard, “Oh, it will be just like new with a little care?” Not that the “care” ever happened. More like it stayed in whatever pathetic, damaged state it was in until one of them finally threw it out or passed it off to someone else who had more follow-through. She sure as hell wasn’t into crafts and shit. The day would come when she could stroll into shops and buy what she wanted instead of saving money with some glue and spray paint.

  This stash seemed harmless enough and was like someone had cleaned out desk drawers. Blue and black pens were on top of small yellow notepads, sets of blank notes cards with different bird designs, a bag of rubber bands, a box of paperclips, some loose pencils, a plastic pencil sharpener, a deck of playing cards, a handful of thumbtacks stuck in a cardboard piece, folded pieces of tissue paper in multiple pastels, a stack of letter-size white envelopes, a ruler, and a couple of rolls of tape. At least it was something useful for a change.

  The framed print her mother had also hauled in was typical of something that had obviously struck her and they had no genuine need for. A short pier jutted into blue water and a sailboat was in the background. There was a trio of brown pelicans in the foreground. One had already perched, another was settling in to land on a post, and the third was wheeling to make an approach. It was a standard kind of scene for marine-related décor. Yeah, there were some blank spots where they could hang it, but as usual, it required some work. The print was leaning against the wall, the glass streaked from what had probably been a few swipes with a damp rag, and there were speckles along the bottom and partway up the right side. Crystal imagined it had been stuck in the back of a closet or something and dug out for the yard sale. She doubted the glass could be properly cleaned and when she lifted it, she realized the wooden frame was held together with tiny nails and the bottom was pulling loose. She could see some rust and frowned in aggravation. Great, if she wasn’t careful, she’d jab herself. Maybe she could tap it back into place and she’d hang it in in her mother’s bedroom and not bother with trying to clean it. She moved it to the table where she could lay it flat. The bottom piece of the frame came apart with the movement and she could see the right side was separating from the glass. There was a bottle of fast drying extra strength glue somewhere around. That might hold better than the old nails. It didn’t take long to find the glue and as she was maneuvering the bottom piece back into place, she realized there was a slight bulge. The print should have been flat against the cardboard backing leaving a fraction of an inch between the glass and the print. This was tighter, causing more pressure on the frame because of the extra thickness. She lifted the edge of the print with her fingernail to see there was a thin piece of paper under it. No, there were two pieces. Curious, she looked to see the entire right side of the frame was pulling away now. It wouldn’t take much effort to disassemble and if she was careful, she could still glue it all back together. She grabbed a knife from the dishrack and gently pried the frame undone, pushing the pieces aside to be able to lift the glass away cleanly.