Shades of Deception

by Charlie Hudson

  “You’re lost in thought,” Les said as he came in. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure where to start,” Bev said and swept her hand across her desk. “Unless you’re over your caffeine limit, get some coffee. It’s that kind of conversation.” One of the traits Bev appreciated about Les was his almost unshakeable calm. He took her mug without asking, brought both to her desk after filling them, and sat in the chair to the side. He pointed his mug to the open file and listened quietly to what she had to say, beginning with her interview of Laurie Wright. His few nods were encouraging.

  “My mom has loved puzzles since as long as I can remember — the big 1,000-plus piece kind,” he said calmly. “She had a card table in one corner of the living room set up for whichever one she was working on. We’d play around with them sometimes, too, but she just had this knack for walking up when we were stuck, taking one look and picking up a piece that would let you put together a whole section.”

  Bev exhaled slowly. “You think that’s what we have here?”

  “Every conclusion we drew made sense with what we had and so does the possibility we were wrong. It won’t take long to get the records for Crystal’s cell. She mostly got around by bike, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Bev said, not following him.

  “We only have Crystal’s word for her leaving the trailer a little before seven. We never checked about her friend because there was no reason to. Maybe it was a lot later and she was home with her mom and talked her into using the heating pad with the pain patch. I can see how that could happen.” He sipped and looked over the rim of his mug. “I’m in for at least following up. How do you want to divide it?”

  Bev tapped the file with her finger. “I start on the phone end and you check out the friend? We’re going to have to talk to the Chief before much longer and he’s not going to be happy.”

  “That’s a pretty safe bet,” Les said and frowned. “This will be one for the books alright, if it turns out poor little Crystal is a psycho who whacked at least two people instead of being a sympathetic victim.”

  Bev picked up the telephone and pushed the file toward him. “The fact is, I’m still having trouble getting my head around it, but I’m way past being sure of what we thought we knew was true. The address for the friend Crystal was with is in there. You’re right about we didn’t talk to him, but we did take it down.”

  “Force of habit,” Les said and stood. “See you back here later.”

  While Bev was putting in the request for Crystal’s phone records, she suddenly remembered Martha Sears. If Bev remembered correctly, her undergraduate degree was in psychology and although she didn’t have as much respect for the profession as perhaps she should, Martha was someone she trusted. It was approaching lunchtime and Martha might be willing to take a break if Bev came bearing sandwiches. If she didn’t have a background in aberrant behavior, she might know an expert to consult. A session with her should align time-wise with the phone records being sent and Les returning from his interview. Would he find another missing piece, or would the new theory fall apart?

  Bev’s comment about not knowing which way she wanted this whole business to play out was accurate. She wouldn’t allow her aversion to coincidence and what she’d learned about Crystal’s grandmother to override rational thought. Mr. Knox’s sentiment was correct, though, about justice. She also wasn’t going to allow three deaths to be ignored because she wasn’t willing to admit they’d almost been outsmarted.

  “I appreciate you coming to the house,” Martha said and waved Bev to the mosaic-topped round table in the dining nook. “I’ll be making rounds on this end of the Keys today and I can get more paperwork done working from home. I’ve started doing that a couple of days a week. And thanks for the sandwiches. Grocery shopping is on my to-do list for tonight and lunch was going to be a pack of tuna with crackers. You want an update on the Gleeson family before we get to whatever you really came for?”

  Bev did a quick mental sort of Gleeson — Stacey, Chad, and Ryan — and the piece of shit abuser Donny. The emergency room with the family was the last time she’d seen Martha. “Is it too much to hope for good news?”

  “Let’s go with cautiously optimistic,” Martha said and brought Diet Coke for both of them. “Donny won’t be getting out of prison any time soon and one of the social workers up in Miami-Dade is linked in with a grant program where students can take a hospitality course at no cost. The first part is only six weeks long and they allegedly have a good placement rate with local hotels starting out on the front desk. Stacey can work part time and if she has an aptitude for it, the other modules go into management type training. Stacey qualified for subsidized housing and some other benefits, so they have a place to live. Chad is in a good school and seems to be doing well. That’s about the best we can do for now.”

  She unwrapped the turkey with avocado slices on multigrain bread and reached for an extra napkin. Fine lines across her forehead and around her brown eyes gave her a maternal look which was probably beneficial in her profession. Her own divorce had apparently been somewhat acrimonious and time as a single mother of a daughter, no doubt, gave her useful insight in encouraging women who might be hesitant to leave a bad relationship. “How about I eat and you talk, then we can swap.”

  Martha didn’t interrupt while Bev explained the basics, but her expression indicated she was paying close attention. She popped the last bite of sandwich into her mouth and nodded. “A hell of a situation. I only have an undergraduate degree in psychology, so what I can tell you will be in general terms. However, I did spend a semester as a volunteer for a program in a women’s prison and that experience was a major part of why I moved into social work for my masters instead of continuing for a graduate degree in psych.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” Bev said and added salt and pepper to her roasted chicken on herbed focaccia.

  “It’s germane to the conversation,” Martha said. “An older cousin I admired was why I went into psych in the first place. People pick it as a major for different reasons and I already had the idea of working with short-term trauma counseling. I was never interested in the drawn-out kind of therapy. Anyway, I signed up for the prison program the last semester of my junior year. The focus was in the minimum security facility and I came to the conclusion if I changed over to social work, it would give me a better opportunity for interventions before women wound up in out-of-control situations.” She smiled wryly. “I see the look on your face. No, I’m not saying they were all victims of the system. Too many of them made bad choices early in life and couldn’t get off the path before reality bit them in the ass. Get to them before they make too many bad decisions and they might have a chance. Anyway, more pertinent to what I think you’re looking for were the few sessions we had in the maximum security facility. Those were some hard women for sure. Virtually all were sociopathic to some degree and a couple were genuine psychopaths.”

  Bev set the second half of her sandwich aside and nibbled a potato chip. “Is the difference important?”

  “Well yeah. The terms get inappropriately interchanged. I’m not an expert and if you need specific information I can refer you to one of my professors. Most in either category aren’t violent, but they can make people’s lives miserable with their behavior because what they actually have is anti-social personality disorder. Sociopaths tend to be easier to identify since they’re more impulsive and often not good at planning if they’re going to commit some type of a crime. Current thinking is sociopaths are often impacted and shaped by their environment.”

  Bev leaned forward. “Meaning psychopaths aren’t?”

  Martha held up both hands. “We’re talking generalizations here and environment can have an impact, but genetics seem to be more of a factor. There are also the matters of frequent higher intelligence, meticulous planning, ability to function normally within society, maybe even charmingly so.”


  “How about age? I’m struggling with this. I know about gang and youth violence and that would seem to fall in the sociopath description.”

  “Yes, with the reminder we’re dealing with generalizations which may or may not fit this situation. As for planned homicide, you can look it up, but there have been prosecutions of murderers as young as age ten, I think,” Martha said and her mouth turned downward. “I don’t envy what you’re digging around in.”

  Bev rewrapped the rest of her sandwich and slid it into the bag. “You don’t get to pick and choose how a case goes. Listen, I really appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

  “And you know I won’t discuss this with anyone until you tell me otherwise,” Martha said and almost smiled. “I do expect a follow-up either way.”

  “You bet,” Bev said thinking about Walt and Nina. Jesus, and she was the person who liked to stay in official channels. Well hell, they were all knowledgeable in their areas and using outside consultants was common. A text from Les pinged as she was walking to the car. On the way. I have something extra.

  Bev assumed extra meant good and Les had brewed fresh coffee when she arrived at the office. “I asked them to hold our calls and the Chief is out until after four o’clock,” he said. “You want the okay news or the potentially good news first. You don’t have the phone record info yet, do you?”

  Bev shook her head and carried her coffee to sit in the chair next to his desk. “Take it in whatever order you want.”

  “The friend, Josh, is the okay part. Based on the smell of grass in the living room of the apartment, he probably has serious short-term memory issues and talking with him did not require my finest interrogation technique. He and Crystal have been friends for quite a while and, interestingly, she uses his place as he phrased it — ‘to get away from the pit her drunken mother keeps them in.’ Apparently, he’s offered to let Crystal move in with him and I don’t think it’s a play for sex.”

  “Did he ever meet Catherine or visit their trailer?”

  Les lifted his coffee mug. “No, these are all things Crystal told him. We know Catherine wasn’t a perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn’t think she fell to that kind of level.”

  Bev was shaking her head. “Not if we believe the woman who worked with Catherine, and if it was true she brought home drunken boyfriends, my bet is the neighbor, Mrs. Plummer, would have given you lurid details.”

  “I agree, which to me means Crystal painted the picture of her terrible home life either because she viewed it that way, or it was useful. In either case, it goes back to the big question — did she hate her mother enough to kill her. And the bottom line with the kid, Josh, was he doesn’t really know what time she arrived. Again in his words, he’d been ‘partying pretty hard,’ but he did verify she spent the night and went out of his way to assure me it was on the couch. He seems to think of her as a little sister.”

  Bev had hoped for more. “Huh, you’re right in it doesn’t give us anything definitive. The good news would be what?”

  Les smiled. “Our girl Crystal has a fairly tight radius she moves in, all doable with a bicycle, which as we’ve remarked, can go unnoticed by people. Josh’s apartment isn’t very far from Scuba-Plus. I got a hunch and went to Scuba-Plus looking for the guy, Julio, you told me about from your talk with the girl Laurie. He was in — a mouthy, macho little shit. He idolized Matt’s way with women, which tells you something about him, and he indicated Matt flirted with Crystal a lot, but told Julio she was too young to mess with. That doesn’t prove she found this out, but she could have. Next point is, even though I still don’t totally understand this pony bottle business and the toxic mix you explained, Julio said Matt had mentioned something about going to work with Crystal on her new pony bottle.”

  Bev leaned forward. “Bingo!”

  Les held one hand up. “There’s something even better. I was on a roll and thought, why not swing into the Everything Nautical gift shop where Deena Pierce worked. By the way, the owner Zia is impressive and she gave me permission to have the security guys review the back-up footage from the camera. There’s no audio, but Crystal was alone in the store with Deena the day of Deena’s death. Well, actually it would be the afternoon before. No matter how you count the time, the two of them were in conversation that looked to be more than just a simple sales transaction.”

  “Holy shit.” Bev was glad she’d swallowed her coffee, and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her to ask for security camera footage. Knowing it was a hindsight is 20-20 reaction didn’t take the sting out. “Any chance the view was such that a lip reader could give us something?”

  Les swirled the coffee in his mug. “I don’t know enough to answer that, but I’m sure we can find an expert to ask.” He raised his eyebrows. “We ready to go to the Chief?”

  Bev glanced at her watch. “We’ve got a little over an hour. I’ll see if the telephone report is in and you start checking for a lipreading expert?”

  “I’m on it,” he said and swiveled his chair toward the computer.

  Within half an hour, they looked across to each other. “Ladies first,” Les said.

  “No luck,” Bev admitted. “No trace of calls between Crystal and Pierce. Several calls between Crystal and Josh, but she’s clean on the night before and morning of her mother’s death. There was nothing different than what was in her statement to us.”

  Les shrugged. “I guess that would have been too easy. The contact I found with lip reading expertise is up in Homestead and no surprise when she said she’ll have to see the video. She gives it a maybe.”

  “We don’t need the entire conversation,” Bev pointed out. “If the word ‘Matt’ can be picked up at all, we’ve got a couple of judges around who I’m sure will issue a warrant if we can show the connection.”

  Les nodded. “Makes sense. How do you want to do this with the Chief? You take the lead and I support or flip it around?

  Bev tapped her chest with her forefinger and stood. “We’ll both catch the initial blast and I am the one who opened this mess up again. I’ll go see if he has anything else on his calendar for the afternoon. It’s not his poker night which means he’ll come back to the office to wrap up.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. They let him settle with his afternoon coffee before they came into his office with Les sitting in the well-worn armchair directly in front of the desk and Bev perching on the arm of the other one. Chief Taylor didn’t bother with small talk. He frowned at Bev. “I know that look. What the hell have you stirred up now?”

  His expression didn’t change as she gave him the major points of what they’d found. His tone was level as he laced comments about what closed cases meant with less profanity than Bev expected. “I swear to God if you haven’t been right with something as screwball as this before I would throw your asses out of my office,” he said darkly. “What do you have that might resemble evidence and evidence of what?”

  “Nothing substantial yet,” Bev said without flinching. “We know it’s all circumstantial and if every thread didn’t lead to Crystal, we wouldn’t have risked coming in here for a butt-chewing. We want to go after this.”

  Chief Taylor was not as dour as some days, his brown eyes flicking between her and Les. His left hand was wrapped around the stained coffee mug he rarely allowed to be washed and he unconsciously twirled a pen on the top of the desk. He’d developed the habit instead of what used to be the ever-present cigarette between his fingers. His wife had said him quitting smoking was all she wanted for their fortieth anniversary and everyone had been shocked when he agreed. “Go after what exactly? The dead girl, the diver guy, the mother? One, two, all three?”

  Bev was careful to keep any hint of sarcasm from her voice. “You want to believe these are nothing more than coincidences?”

  He silently drummed thick fingers of his right hand along
the edge of his wooden desk before he spoke. “Let’s start with the girl — the alcohol poisoning case.”

  Bev didn’t hesitate. “We know it’s thin and from a legal point of view, other than drinking underage, Crystal might not be guilty of anything. Doc Cooper said while there’s a good chance Pierce could have been saved had she gotten medical attention in time, he can’t professionally swear to that. We do know the tequila wasn’t forced down her. After we found the link between the women, we played out a scenario of Crystal setting Pierce up because she wanted to make sure she and Raney didn’t get back together. If true, though, why would Crystal turn against Raney? Based on what Wright told me, she was sure Crystal was hot for Raney, but Nina had made a comment about Raney didn’t go for teenagers as she put it, and Julio told Les the same thing except he used the term jailbait. Our thought is, Crystal made some sort of move on Raney and he let her know it was nothing more than flirting for him.”

  Chief Taylor grunted and lifted his mug. “Girl scorned kind of deal?”

  “It’s been known to happen,” Les said quietly. “I had a case like it not long after I made detective. It was quick to solve, but it was still ugly. The ex-fiancée wasn’t much older than Crystal. She shot the guy and the new girlfriend. Tried to make it look like murder-suicide. She was sloppy as hell and it didn’t take long to work out. I’ll never forget her total lack of remorse. Her only regret was getting caught.”

  Bev chimed in to keep the momentum going. “Our angle is if Crystal was at least a little rattled about Pierce dying, or had in fact been cold-blooded enough to expect her to die, then found out Raney wasn’t really interested in her, she tipped over the edge. My scuba expert explained how she could have gotten Raney to breath a toxic mixture which is what caused him to go into convulsions and drown. It is more plausible than her getting her hands on a poison.”