Among the Shadows

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  PELLIGROSSO DROVE THEM toward the pike while Byron made some calls.

  Diane answered on the first ring. “Just about to call you.”

  “Anything from the canvass?”

  “Zilch. No one home at half of the houses, the others all claim to keep to themselves. Said they didn’t know O’Halloran.”

  “Nuge fare any better?”

  “Nope, but we left a shitload of business cards on doors. Felt like we were running for public office. What’s the doc’s prognosis?”

  “Pending tox. But definitely suffocated. You guys still on the street?”

  “We’re grabbing a quick burger. What do you need?”

  “Do me a favor and swing by Pine Tree Hospice in South Portland. Tell them you want to see St. John’s personnel file. I want to know if she’s worked any other questionable deaths.”

  “They’re gonna raise holy hell. What do you want us to do if they refuse?”

  “I’m calling the attorney general as soon as I hang up. I’ll have them draw up a subpoena and fax it directly to them. Don’t leave there without her file.”

  “You got it.”

  “Also, I want the file on the weekend-­duty nurse, Mathers. And find out if anyone else may have filled in or covered an after-­hours emergency at O’Halloran’s.”

  “Ten four.”

  “One last thing, Diane. Get a hold of Tran and have him search in-­house and NCIC. I want to know if she’s got any history.”

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  As Byron hung up, he heard his own stomach’s audible protest. Aside from coffee and breath mints, he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. “You hungry?” he asked Pelligrosso.

  “I could eat a horse.”

  “Think I can do better than that.”

  Pelligrosso looked at him as if he was waiting for him to finish his thought.

  “My treat.”

  “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  “WAS THAT FERGUSON?” Pelligrosso asked as Byron ended the call.

  “None other. The best assistant AG in the state.”

  “Sounds like he’s on board.”

  “Why do you think he’s the best in the state?”

  They pulled into the gravel parking lot of Jimmy’s Lunch, a hole in the wall located off the Gardiner Exit on Route 126. Prior to Detective Ray Humphrey’s retirement, he and Ray always made a habit of stopping at Jimmy’s after an autopsy, a custom going back years. This was his first time with Pelligrosso.

  Byron liked the young evidence tech. He liked the way Pelligrosso went about his work, taking great pains to be thorough. There was a bit of a dark streak, a brooding quality about him, but Byron chalked it up to the time he’d spent fighting in Afghanistan. Byron figured if Pelligrosso ever wanted to talk about it, he would.

  They seated themselves at a booth. Byron commandeered the wall seat, second nature to any veteran officer, which allowed him to watch the door as well as the activities of any other customers. Pelligrosso was fidgety. His discomfort at having his back exposed to the room was obvious.

  “Don’t worry, Gabe,” Byron said. “I’ve got your six.”

  Pelligrosso smiled. “I know you do.”

  They each ordered soft drinks, burgers, and hand-­cut fries. Best in the state, according to a greasy sign on the wall.

  “Can I ask you a question, Sarge?”

  “Shoot.”

  “You remember the whole Dr. Kevorkian thing?”

  Byron already knew where this was headed. “Assisted suicide, yeah.”

  “Let’s say O’Halloran only had a month or two left. Based on the way he looked, I’m probably being generous. If it was one of the nurses who suffocated him, maybe they did him a favor.”

  Byron took a sip out of the red plastic tumbler as he formulated his response. He remembered rooting for Kevorkian himself. “I think this one’s a little different, Gabe.”

  “Why is it?”

  “In the Kevorkian case, each of his victims had given up and were seeking a humane end to their suffering. They went to the doctor and asked for his help. He had videos to document their wishes. But in this case, whether it was the nurse or not, there’s nothing humane about smothering someone to death with a pillow. And there’s nothing left behind to indicate O’Halloran even wanted a way out. This is a murder, plain and simple.”

  “I guess maybe you’re right. I just keep picturing myself lying there, dying from cancer. I’d sure want a way out.”

  “I probably would, too,” Byron said.

  Byron pictured a younger, stronger O’Halloran, squared away in his dress uniform, sitting beside him in the front row of the church. Byron had been no more than a scared teenaged kid. O’Halloran had provided the strength Byron needed to get through what had been undoubtedly the toughest day of his young life.

  He returned to the here-­and-­now and looked over at his young evidence tech. “Someone murdered that old man, and I’m gonna find out who.”

  Chapter Five

  IT WAS NEARLY three-­thirty by the time Byron and Pelligrosso arrived back at 109. Pelligrosso grabbed the evidence van and returned to O’Halloran’s in his search for prints and any other trace evidence. Byron headed up to his office on the fourth floor. He was washing up in the CID locker room when LeRoyer walked in.

  “Well, that was certainly convenient, John. Did you purposely schedule the autopsy to coincide with CompStat?”

  “Hey, I only asked how soon Ellis could do it. The M.E.’s office schedules the exams, not me. Would you rather I sat around the table watching the command staff measure each other’s dicks or work a homicide?”

  “Easy there, cowboy. I’m part of the command staff.”

  Lieutenant Martin LeRoyer was affable enough, and although Byron liked him, they frequently butted heads. It went with the territory. The thing that bothered Byron most about LeRoyer was he’d been a boss for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to be an investigator. Gone from LeRoyer’s memory were what it meant to eat, sleep, and breathe a case. It was all about statistics now. Byron had never gained a single thing from statistics. Not once in twenty years as a cop could he remember stats helping to crack a case.

  Criminals are an unpredictable lot, with diverse motives. The dumb ones were caught, repeatedly, but the intelligent ones sometimes never. What Byron sought were cold, hard facts, not charts and graphs and questions about who got the credit and who got the blame. The most useful investigative knowledge came from digging, fact-­checking, and interviews—­good old-­fashioned police work, not sitting around discussing absurd statistics. As far as Byron was concerned, CompStat was a waste of time and resources.

  LeRoyer went to his locker, grabbing his toothbrush and paste. Byron despised the lieutenant’s habit of talking with a mouth full of toothpaste foam. It made him look like a rabid dog. “So, what’d you find out?”

  “He was suffocated.”

  “Wasn’t he damn near dead anyway?”

  “Close.”

  “We like the nurse?”

  He wondered how many times in one day a person could be asked the same question. “No. I don’t really care for her. But at the moment, she’s made the top two on our list of possible suspects.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Not really. There’s only two names on the list.”

  “Family?”

  “Estranged. I spoke to his only daughter, Susan, by telephone, but she’s in Florida. The biggest problem is anyone could’ve accessed the house. It was always unlocked.”

  LeRoyer spat into the sink, spraying foam onto the mirror. “Neighbors?”

  “Nuge and Diane canvassed, nothing yet. We’re checking the nurses’ records.”

  “Yeah, I know. Already got a call from the manager at Happy Hospice. Tim Caron. Big ass
hole.”

  “Pine Tree Hospice,” Byron said, grinning.

  “Whatever.” LeRoyer rinsed. “Guy’s still an asshole.”

  “Nothing I’d enjoy more than to hang here all afternoon and chew the fat, Lieu, but I got a case to work.”

  “Oh, by all means, Sergeant. Don’t let me stand in your way. And stop parking in front of 109!”

  DETECTIVES DIANE JOYNER and Mike Nugent were as opposite as the ends of the earth. The tough-­talking Joyner was a full six inches taller than her wisecracking, foulmouthed sometimes partner. Normally, Nugent and his highly reflective dome would’ve been partnered with Detective Melissa Stevens, but manpower issues had forced her back into the lab on a part-­time basis. Byron never worried about Diane, but at times Nugent could be a bit too laid back.

  “How’d you make out with the records?” Byron asked.

  “We got copies of reviews, training, and thank-­you letters for both nurses,” Diane said. “Hey, did you know Frankie was a guy?”

  Byron, recalling St. John’s remark about him being sexist, began to laugh.

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, waving her off and trying to regain his composure. “Anybody else care for him?”

  “According to Pine Tree Hospice, St. John and Mathers were the only nurses who had any contact with O’Halloran.”

  “The best part was the quality time we got to spend with the hospice manager,” Nugent said.

  “Asshole,” they both said in unison.

  “So I’ve heard. Any indication St. John might previously have been suspected of helping a patient along?”

  “Delivery from this mortal coil?” Nugent asked. “None. In fact, when he wasn’t threatening us with civil action, Caron did manage to say she’d come highly recommended from Maine Med. Why the hell would she risk everything to do in a patient anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Byron said. “Why does anyone? Tired of watching ­people suffer, maybe?”

  “She wouldn’t be the first,” Diane said. “You want us to grab the hospital records as well?”

  “Yes, before their legal team starts circling the wagons,” Byron said. “I don’t want to overlook anything.”

  “You want us to call Ferguson for another subpoena?” Diane asked.

  “No, I’ll take care of it. I need to speak with him again anyway. Anything new on the canvass?”

  “We’re still waiting to hear from a few folks who weren’t home,” Nugent said.

  “Good, let me know if something breaks. I gotta go see Tran.”

  DUSTIN TRAN WAS a thirty-­year-­old bachelor who rode his bicycle to work every morning, regardless of the weather. He was the only detective assigned to the Computer Forensics Lab. A virtuoso on all things computer related, Tran actually preferred working alone. Byron wondered if the loner thing was a result of his acne scars or his odd personality.

  Tran’s office sat at the end of the third-­floor corridor, beside the Regional Crime Lab. He was seated at his desk, which looked more like a display shelf in some big-­box store than a detective’s workstation. His jet-­black hair, glistening with gel, had been molded into something resembling a pompadour. Three oversized, high-­definition monitors sat atop his desk while shelves of computer towers whirred away doing God knew what.

  “Yo, Sarge,” Tran said.

  Byron bristled. He’d never quite warmed up to Tran’s casual surfer-­dude demeanor, but he tolerated it because the detective was good at his job. Had anyone else tried talking to Byron like that, he would have lost it. “Any luck on St. John?”

  “Nothing in-­house, but NCIC shows one arrest in ’93.”

  Byron’s interest peaked. “For?”

  “Disorderly conduct. Looks like she was attending a peace rally at the University of New England. Might’ve gotten out of hand.”

  Byron wondered if caring for O’Halloran might also have gotten a little out of hand.

  “Anything else?”

  “If there is, I can’t find it.”

  He flipped open his notepad. “I need you to check on one more person for me.”

  “Go with it.”

  “Francis Mathers, DOB two, thirteen, eighty-­nine.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  Byron stopped as he reached the door. “One more thing.”

  “Bring it.”

  “O’Halloran has a daughter named Susan Atherton. See if you can find out if she’s been outside of Florida recently. Like, maybe visiting Portland, Maine.”

  After leaving Tran’s office, Byron headed for the privacy afforded by the building’s stairwell. He still needed to make a phone call he’d been putting off. Even if Atherton had been on the outs with her father, nobody wants to be informed of their parent’s murder.

  LEROYER CALLED BYRON into his office. “I just got off the phone with St. John’s attorney.”

  “Let me guess, one of the senior partners at Dewey, Fuckem and Howe?”

  “Close. It’s Roger Bertram.”

  Bertram was an arrogant windbag, known for stealing defendants from other attorneys. If the case made a splash, he wanted it; not for any merit it may have had, only for the free publicity. Red-­faced and overweight, he got winded riding an elevator. Bertram had crossed paths with Byron on several different occasions, and his disdain for the Portland Police Department was not news.

  “Great, so I guess we’re done talking with her.”

  “Nope. She didn’t lawyer up.”

  “Then, why the attorney?”

  “She wants a polygraph. Says she’s got nothing to hide.”

  “Wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Byron said.

  “What’s to lose?”

  “Everything. You know I don’t have any faith in that crap.”

  “Maybe you should broaden your horizons, John.”

  “All right, Lieu, let’s say she fails the test. We won’t be able to use it in court.”

  “Maybe it’ll make her confess.”

  “You honestly think Bertram would allow that to happen? Then there’s the other possibility—­she passes it.”

  “Why would that be a problem?”

  “If we do end up finding out she killed O’Halloran, don’t think for a second that weasel won’t try and get the judge to admit the polygraph results as evidence of her innocence.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “Don’t have much of a choice, do I? We don’t give it to her and Bertram will say we refused to let her clear her name.”

  Byron knew the polygraph was a double-­edged sword. The idea of catching ­people in lies sounded good on its face, but there was still the monumental problem of getting them to confess if they did fail the test. The inadmissibility of polygraph results meant obtaining a confession would be key. Unlike the desperadoes of stage and screen, the prospect of failing a polygraph never causes the real-­life baddies to curl up in a fetal position and give up the goods.

  Byron was heading out to find Mathers when he ran into Shirley Grant, the CID office assistant, in the hallway.

  “Sergeant Byron,” she said fixing him with a disapproving stare. “You haven’t been checking your voicemail, have you?”

  “Been a little busy, Shirley. What’d I miss?”

  She held up her hands and began counting on her fingers. “Well, let’s see—­your wife called twice, wanting to speak with you. Said it was important.”

  It always is, he thought.

  “And Davis Billingslea has been by twice and called three times about the body you had this morning.”

  Byron always did his best to avoid the Portland Herald’s young, overzealous police-­beat reporter. Billingslea seemed to get his hands on information even befo
re Byron himself. “You switched them all to my voicemail?”

  “I did, and they’re both upset because you haven’t returned their calls.”

  “You’re too good to me, Shirley. I promise I’ll call them both back as soon as I have two seconds. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, not sounding the least bit convinced.

  As he exited the stairwell out onto the plaza, Billingslea was lying in wait.

  “Sergeant, you’re a hard man to get a hold of,” he said, positioning himself between Byron and the parking garage.

  “Davis. What can I do for you?”

  “I wanna know about the hospice death you’re investigating.”

  “Nothing to tell. An elderly hospice patient died. It happens all the time.”

  “Really? ’Cause the way I hear it, you brought a nurse in for questioning. There’s a rumor the patient might have been put out of his misery.”

  “Davis, I don’t know where you come up with this stuff, but you know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “So there is an ongoing investigation. Can I quote you?”

  “No.”

  A car horn blared from inside the police garage. They both looked up; it was Diane and she was waving frantically. She lowered the passenger window. “Sarge,” she shouted, “we just got the call. Come on, we gotta go.”

  “What call?” Billingslea asked. “Where do you and Detective Joyner have to go?”

  “Sorry, Davis.”

  “Come on, give me something.”

  “I gotta run,” Byron said as he hurried up the steps to her car. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Is this connected to the death?” Billingslea hollered after him.

  Byron climbed into Diane’s car and closed the door as she put it in gear. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it. Looked like you needed saving.”

  “The guy’s friggin’ relentless. How the fuck does he know so much about this case already?”

  “Maybe he’s psychic.”

  “More like someone’s got a big mouth.” Byron adjusted the sun visor. “I thought you were getting the records from the hospital.”