Falafel Jones - The Kewpie Killer

by Falafel Jones

  Eddie asked him, “How you know Ryan didn’t die from his earlier injuries?”

  Robby stroked the counter top with his hand. “Nurses say Ryan was unconscious but breathing… until someone killed him.”

  “Anybody see anything?”

  “We’re interviewing staff at the nurses’ station, visitors in the waiting room, doctors and staff on the floor. So far, no one remembers seeing anyone enter the room since the doctor left. Our guys are processing the scene now.”

  “Where’s the doctor?”

  “Patrol just found him. He’s in the waiting room. This way.”

  We followed Robby down the hall and into an alcove filled with sofas and chairs. A patrol officer stood guard outside near the entrance.

  Robby walked up to the man seated by the vending machine.

  “Doctor DeAndrea?”

  The Doctor picked up his coffee cup from the floor between his feet and stood. “Yes?”

  “Detective Carlyle.” He gestured with his pad towards Eddie and me. “Detective Franklin. Raquel Flanagan. You attended Daniel Ryan?”

  “Yes. I uh, yes.”

  “When he was admitted, what was his condition?”

  “Unconscious, lacerations, blood loss… but stable, breathing on his own.”

  “…and his condition the last time you saw him?”

  “The same… that is until, they called a code blue.”

  “Code blue?”

  “An alert sounded at the nurses’ station… Mr. Ryan was in cardiac arrest. He stopped breathing.”

  “When you responded, what did you find?”

  “I saw finger marks on his neck and a small gold sailboat charm on his chest.” The doctor finished his coffee, crushed his paper cup and tossed it into the trash. “We did the best we could. It was too late.”

  “Did he have these marks before? Did you see the charm earlier?”

  “No.”

  Robby said, “Thank you, Doctor,” and exited the waiting area. Eddie and I started to follow when Dr. DeAndrea said, “Ms. Flanagan?”

  I stopped and turned. “Yes?”

  “Please excuse me but are you related to Sean Flanagan?”

  “I’m his daughter. Why?”

  “He interviewed some of my hospice patients a few years ago. Please say, ‘Hello’ for me. He gave those patients a real lift at a rough time.”

  “He would have loved to hear that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he… I guess that’s why we never saw the article.”

  “I guess but thanks for mentioning it. Who knows? Maybe we can find his notes. Publishing his story now might be a nice legacy for him and the patients.”

  Dr. DeAndrea offered his hand and we shook. “That would be something.”

  After I joined Robby and Eddie in the hall, Eddie asked, “So, Carlyle, what do you think?”

  Robby thumbed pages in his pad. “Doesn’t make sense unless someone was in the room after the doctor and before the code blue.”

  Eddie looked up at a camera mounted in the hall ceiling. “You say no one saw anything… any security video?”

  “My next stop.”

  We took the elevator to the main floor and followed the signs to the security office. When we entered, a uniformed guard behind the counter looked up. “Detective, I’ve queued up that video you requested.”

  Robby nodded and the guard pointed to one of the monitors on the counter. It displayed a view of the hall outside of Ryan’s room. We watched Dr. DeAndrea close Ryan’s door on his way out and various people walk by, but for five minutes, no one else entered or left. Ten minutes later, a man in a blue uniform pushed a cart down the hall, left it at Ryan’s door and stepped inside the room. He came out holding a plastic bag he placed into a large bin on his cart. He looked around, pushed the cart to the elevator and pressed a button. While he waited, the man turned and faced the camera.

  Robby told the security officer, “Freeze that and make me a print.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know that man?”

  The guard shook his head. “Bring the picture downstairs to Maintenance. If he’s one of ours, someone there should know him.”

  Robby said, “Thanks,” took the photo and headed towards the door. I followed but noticed Eddie lingered behind.

  “Eddie,” I asked, “you coming?”

  “Unh, no, there’s something else I want to look at. You two go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  Robby and I took the stairs down to Maintenance and entered a small office next door to the hospital laundry room.

  A woman sat at a small metal desk against the wall and shuffled through some papers. The noise from the laundry machines was loud enough that I didn’t think she heard us come in. I didn’t want to startle her so I stepped back and knocked on the open metal door. No luck. She jumped anyway and then turned to look at us.

  “Jesus, what are you doing here? No one’s allowed in the basement. What are you? Lost?”

  Robby stepped forward and displayed his badge. “What’s your name?”

  “Rosalinda. Why? What’s going on?”

  Robby sat on the corner of the desk and said, “Rosalinda, how ‘bout I get to ask some questions for a change?”

  She sat back in her chair leaning away from Robby and raised one eyebrow. “What do you want to know?”

  “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,” Robby shook his finger at Rosalinda. “My turn to ask, OK?”

  Rosalinda opened her mouth as if to speak but then closed it without saying anything.

  Robby showed her the picture of the man in the blue uniform from the video surveillance. “Know this guy?”

  Rosalina nodded.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Why you want to know?”

  “There you go again. Who is this guy?”

  “Andy Goodwin.”

  “He work here?”

  “Yeah, just signed out a little while ago.”

  “Got an address?”

  “Got a warrant?”

  “Want me to bring the Hospital Administrator all the way down to the basement to talk to you? I don’t think she’d like that, kinda noisy and a little bit scary down here.”

  Rosalinda pressed some keys on her desktop computer, pointed her chin at the screen and then pushed back her chair from the desk.

  Robby copied something onto his pad, smiled too sweetly and said, “Thank you.”

  After Robby and I climbed the stairs back up to street level, he took out his cell phone and made a call. He hung up and said, “Patrol’s bringing Goodwin to the hospital security office. Let’s get some coffee while we wait.”

  * * *

  Andy Goodwin sat at a table in the Security Office’s interview room. When I first entered, I detected a faint whiff of something cooked in garlic and oil. From the looks of the trash bin contents and table stains, I guessed the guards also used this as a lunchroom. I stood in a corner behind Andy where I could still see his face. Robby sat down across the table from him and Eddie leaned against the doorway.

  Goodwin still wore his blue uniform. He threw his hands up in the air and asked, “Why am I here? What’s going on that you had to drag me back to work? What’s so damned important?”

  Robby read Goodwin his Miranda rights and then asked, “Do you want a lawyer?”

  “I don’t want no lawyer but if this is gonna get serious, I’m gonna want my union rep. What’s going on here?”

  Robby slammed the surveillance photo of Goodwin down on the table. “The man in this room was murdered and here you are… entering and leaving his room.”

  “Damn it Man. That’s my job. They pay me to enter and leave rooms and to take the trash with me when I go.”

  “So why’d you look both ways down the hall after leaving Ryan’s room?”

  Goodwin swung his head side to side so hard his cheeks shook. “Man! I gotta look both ways so I don’t hit no one with my cart. You never pushed no cart in a crowded hallway did yo
u?” He snorted. “No, not you.”

  Eddie asked, “See anybody in Ryan’s room besides Ryan?”

  “Nobody.”

  Robby asked, “Why’d you leave the floor right after exiting Ryan’s room?”

  “’Cause I was done. That’s the last room on the floor. My shift was over and I was done, Man, done. Now, you dragged me back to work. Am I going get overtime for this? Union says I gotta get time and a half for working past my shift.”

  “Was Ryan alive when you last saw him?”

  “Sure sounded it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You hear enough of those hospital machines, you can tell by the sounds when some one’s still alive. They beep like a sci-fi movie. Only time they’s silent is when the patient is dead.”

  Robby got up and exited the room. I followed and left Eddie inside with Goodwin.

  By the time I got to him, Robby was already on the phone.

  I waited until he finished his call. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I called the nurses’ station where they monitored Ryan’s life support to find out what time the code blue triggered.” Robby pointed to the surveillance photo. “When you check it against the time stamp on this photo, they’re fifteen minutes apart. Goodwin can’t be our guy.”

  We went back into the interview room and Robby said, “OK, Goodwin, you can go now. An officer will drive you home.”

  Goodwin got up, looked at his watch and asked, “Am I getting paid OT for this?”

  “No.”

  “I had people to hook up with at home. I had some place to go. You drag me back to work and say I don’t get no overtime? Yeah. Now, I want a lawyer.”

  Chapter Thirty – Abracadaver

  After a patrol officer escorted Goodwin out, Eddie said, “Let’s go back to the video room.”

  Robby asked, “Why?”

  “Ryan had another visitor after Goodwin.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “Watched some more of the tape.”

  Robby advanced on Eddie. “You mean you knew Goodwin didn’t do it and you let me drag him down here?”

  “Calm down. We had to talk to Goodwin anyway. We didn’t know what he knew until we talked to him. What if he said Ryan was dead when he found him? What if he saw somebody else in Ryan’s room? As it is, he helped us narrow the suspect pool and the time of death. That’ll help us nail the real killer. Let’s go watch some TV. Something I want you to see.”

  Back in the video room, we watched the recording of Goodwin leaving in the elevator. Folks wandered the hall but no one entered Ryan’s room for fifteen minutes. Then, when the elevator door opened in front of the nurses’ station, a man down the hall opened Ryan’s door and strolled inside.

  Robby said, “Freeze that and print it. Look, the time stamp is just before the code blue signal and see that hand on the doorknob? Looks like a latex glove.”

  Eddie said, “No prints and he used classic misdirection. Wore a white coat and timed his entrance for when the elevator commanded attention.”

  I asked, “Robby, recognize the man?”

  “No, but let’s see if the staff does.” He obtained a print out from the security officer and we went back upstairs to Ryan’s floor. Robby showed the photo around but no one remembered seeing the man or recognized who he was. Robby leaned against the counter at the nurses’ station while the desk nurse looked at the photo. Just as she said, “Got past me? Must be a magician,” Robby’s cell phone rang.

  He looked at the display, said, “Shit,” and then opened the phone. When he said, “Yes, Chief,” Eddie and I moved a discreet distance. We watched Robby talk and when he finished the call, he walked over to us.

  “Now, I’m screwed. Chief says there must have been two men in the tunnel and I followed the wrong one.”

  Eddie said, “Don’t be so tough on yourself. It’s not easy following footsteps in a dark tunnel.”

  “Tell that to the Chief. All he knows is that Leonardo and the sailor are both dead and their killer is loose. Guess who the Chief holds responsible?”

  Eddie said, “It’s my fault as much as yours. I told you to follow the louder steps.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t work for the W.P.D.” Robby looked at the picture from the video. “If I don’t catch this guy before he kills again, I probably won’t be working for them either.”

  “Robby,” I said, “at least that explains where Leonardo got the charm bracelet.”

  Robby rubbed his forehead. “Both Leonardo and the killer must have been in the tunnel together, but how come Leonardo got away?”

  “And,” Eddie added, “if Leonardo wasn’t the murderer, why’d he kill himself?”

  Two Police Technicians came from Ryan’s room carrying equipment cases. “Detective?”

  “Yes?”

  One Tech said, “Except for that gold charm, we got nothing. The crash team tossed the place when they tried to save him.” The other Tech shrugged and they left.

  Robby looked at me and said, “Geez. I’m really screwed.”

  I pointed to the picture in his hand. “Look, there’s been a carnival connection to all of these deaths. Let’s see if Pops recognizes the guy.”

  Robby sent a patrol car to pick up Pops and then resumed showing the photo around. Eddie and I went back to the security office to watch more video. The guard set us up with the indoor recordings around the time Ryan died. Since there were so many cameras recording different locations at the same time, one hour of real time became many hours of video time.

  We looked for Ryan’s killer in the halls, parking garage and the lobby but couldn’t find him. Robby sent a man down to relieve us and to look through the outdoor parking lot footage. When he arrived, I got a copy of the photo Robby had and we went back up to Ryan’s floor.

  Pops and Robby stood in the waiting area, toe to toe. I could see Pop’s face turning red. He clenched his fists and said, “It’s all your fault my boy is dead. You decided he was a killer. You chased him down and drove him to his death. I hope you have children and every time you look at them, you remember what you did.” Pops spat on Robby’s shoe.

  I touched his elbow. “Pops?”

  He turned to me with a sad face and I touched his cheek. The big man burst into tears, hugged me and buried his head in my neck. Then he loosened his hold and slid down until he knelt on the floor at my feet hugging himself while he sobbed. “Why? First, my Rosa… now my Leonardo… Why?”

  A nurse brought a cup of water. She and I helped Pops to a chair. I sat next to him and patted his shoulder until he calmed down.

  “Pops, can I show you a photo?”

  He wiped his eyes, then his nose on the back of his hand and nodded.

  “Do you know this man?”

  Pop’s stopped sobbing and his jaw went slack. “He always said his greatest illusion would be coming back from the dead. That… that’s Orazio, Leonardo’s father.”

  Chapter Thirty-One – Tisket a tasket, is there a missing casket?

  Pops asked. “You think Orazio was in the tunnel… with Leonardo?”

  Robby said, “I heard two sets of footsteps.”

  “Oh, my God, do you think Leonardo saw his father attacking that man?”

  “There’s a good chance he did. Maybe that’s why he ran.”

  “Detective, I am so sorry, what I said, I was upset. I was wrong. Please forgive me. You didn’t drive Leonardo to his death. His father did.”

  “His father?”

  “When he was three, Leonardo watched his father stab his mother and then sat helpless while his father succumbed to a drug overdose and his mother bled to death. The poor boy’s survived suicide attempts, been in and out of therapy, on and off drugs and still after all that time, wakes up screaming. His only salvation was the thought Orazio was dead and couldn’t hurt anybody anymore. I fear that when he saw Orazio alive in that dark tunnel killing again… it brought everything back… was too much to handle.”
r />   “Are you sure that’s Orazio in the photo?”

  “I haven’t seen him since the day he killed… but I know that face. It’s him.”

  “Do you know where to find him?”

  “No.”

  “Could he have visited the carnival without you knowing?”

  “In New York, sure. We cover a couple of acres and we’re having a good season. A lot of people come to see the show.”

  “Do you think he approached Leonardo?”

  “If he did, the boy would have told me.”

  Robby called over one of the patrol officers and handed him Orazio’s photo. “Make copies and circulate this. Notify State Police, Border Patrol, airports and TSA… everybody. He’s wanted for multiple homicides, armed and dangerous.” Then he said to Eddie, “Any other ideas?”

  “Yeah, Raquel and I found Orazio’s gravesite in Florida. Looks like it’s time to see who’s inside.”

  I said, “But you told me we had no way to ID the remains.”

  “We didn’t then but now we know Leonardo was Orazio’s son. His DNA has components that will match his fathers.”

  Robby said, “I’ll get Leonardo’s sample from the M.E.”

  Eddie took out his cell phone. “… and I’ll have Jennie get an exhumation order.”

  * * *

  Back at Mom’s she hovered over me while I tried to pack some fresh things for tomorrow’s flight to Florida. Her questions about the case made it hard to concentrate on what I needed to find. After grilling me about Ryan, her interest shifted when I mentioned Dr. DeAndrea.

  “So, this Doctor met Dad?”

  “Yup. See my grey skirt anywhere?”

  “What did he say about him?”

  I gave up on packing. It would be impossible until Mom learned what she wanted to know. “Dad gave his patients a lift but we never printed the story.”

  “I’ll bet I could find his notes if I looked. This may be the last thing he ever wrote.”

  “I’d like to see them too.”

  Now she had the full story, Mom started to help me pack. She reached into my underwear drawer and pulled out a red leather thong. Her mouth hung open as she peered into the drawer a second time. With her other hand, she lifted a black sheer top with red leather piping and then asked. “Raquel?”