by Al Stevens
Tap, click, tap. “Got it, Uncle Stanley.”
“Print a copy on Willa’s laser.”
He did that and brought the form to me. I scribbled what I wanted on the scratch form and gave it to Rodney.
“Fill in a new copy with a typewriter font, print it, and sign the judge’s name.”
“You’re kidding,” he said. “Judge Roy Bean?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I got Roscoe out of the safe and clipped it to my belt. With my official-looking counterfeit warrant in hand, I headed out to go shopping.
Belksdales is on the east side of town in an upscale shopping center north of the Interstate. It’s one of the bigger stores there and has its own parking lot.
I went inside and went through the store to management’s offices. I asked a receptionist for directions to security. She sent me down a flight of stairs into a small glass-enclosed space with a wrap-around console housing video monitors surrounding a chair. An elderly man in the usual ill-fitting uniform sat dozing in the chair. His name tag said Jim.
I tapped him on the shoulder. He came awake and looked me up and down. Here I was, a man with fading bruises on his face, casts on his arm and leg, and a crutch, and I was interrupting his busy day. He looked annoyed until I flashed the gold P.I. shield at him. He came to attention and said, “Yes, sir. How can I help you?”
The gold shield again. Best thirty bucks I ever spent.
“Got a warrant here for copies of your parking lot videos.” I held up the warrant and told him the date and times.
“I should probably run this by the general manager,” Jim said, “but he went home. Can you wait until tomorrow?”
“No. This is for a murder investigation. You might have read about it, Jim. A fellow got shot down in the street in one of the southern subdivisions. I’m under a lot of pressure to close this case.”
“Oh, yeah. Right near his own house. I remember it was on the news. Didn’t you guys get the killer?”
“We did, but our case is weak. He might walk on a technicality. He’s rich and can afford the best lawyers. All we have is a limited budget and not enough manpower. Hell, man, you’re in law enforcement. You know the job.”
He seemed pleased that I included him among the finest.
“Seems the criminals have all the rights and the poor victims ain’t got none,” Jim said. “Have a seat over there, please. It’ll take a bit of time.”
I sat and waited while Jim typed on his console’s keyboard. After a couple of minutes he got up and brought a DVD and handed it to me.
“Always happy to help my brothers on the force,” he said. “Don’t take the stairs. There’s a freight elevator down that hall. I use it. Ain’t getting any younger, myself.”
I thanked him, went to the elevator, and up and out to my car. I drove back to the office whistling all the way. I hoped the video would prove my theory.
I gave Rodney the DVD and said, “Watch the whole thing. There will be several clips, one for each camera. Look for the Rolls. Pull off any sequences in which there is activity around the Rolls, and make a video of only those scenes. Put the new video on another DVD, and make three copies. Put one in the safe. I’ll take the other two.”
“You got it, Uncle Stanley.”
Why do people always say that before you get anything?
“No I don’t,” I said. “But I will after you’ve done what I ask.”
“How do I get into the safe?”
“Willa has the combination. I’ll look at the DVD tomorrow. I’m whipped, and I’m out of here.”
Dinner at Ray’s was quiet. Bunny tried to ignore me while I ate, but whenever I glanced over at her, she was staring at me and quickly looked away.
I went home alone after I ate. I needed a night off. I had a couple books I wanted to read, and I tried that but couldn’t get into either one. The case had me preoccupied. I was dead sure that one of those three people had killed Vitole, and I hoped the DVD would prove it. If it didn’t show anyone opening the trunk, then the culprit had to be Ramon or Missy. Neither Buford nor Sanford were stupid enough to keep a murder weapon where the cops would find it. And Serena had an air-tight alibi.
I went outside and tried walking up and down the sidewalk without my crutch. That was almost a success. I only fell down once.
A man came running up and helped me to my feet.
“You should get a cane,” he said.
I thanked him and went back to the apartment to get my crutch. I drove to Walmart and bought a ten-dollar cane. That worked well, and I went home and put the crutch in the hall closet next to its brother.
I mulled everything over for a while thinking about the case. I couldn’t stand it any more. I went outside and drove to the office. I hoped I didn’t slip with the cane and fall down the stairs.
I made it upstairs, went in the office, and got the DVD from the safe. There was no way to watch it in the office. Normally, we’d use Rodney’s laptop, but he’d taken it home with him. Maybe Willa’s computer could do it, but I didn’t know how.
I went back to the apartment and watched the DVD. Rodney had done a good job of editing. It started with Buford’s Rolls pulling up to the curb at about nine in the morning. Serena got out and walked away from the car.
I could’ve stayed right there watching Serena walk, but I had work to do.
The scene changed to the parking lot where the Rolls pulled into a space. Ramon got out and walked away. The scene faded out and then back in when the car left the parking space. The time stamp showed it to be about eleven o’clock.
The next scene, at about noon, showed the Rolls returning, pulling up to the curb, and letting Missy out. Then the car parked in another space, and Ramon got out and walked away.
So far, the video bore out what Ramon had told me. The surprise came next.
At about one-thirty a panel van pulled up next to the Rolls. I could make out the Arnold Locksmith and Security logo on the side. The driver got out and looked around. The resolution of the video wasn’t good enough to clearly show his face, but it was William Sproles, there was no doubt about that. The shape of his head, his hair, and his mannerisms all fit. I wished we could do what they do on CSI and zoom in and sharpen the image, but that’s only on television.
Sproles was holding a box. He took the box to the rear of the Rolls and opened the trunk.
Sproles returned to the van, got something else, which could have been a gun. He put it in the trunk of the Rolls and closed the trunk lid. Then he returned to the van, got in, and drove away.
This was what I needed, a video of someone, anyone planting something in Buford’s Rolls where the cops had found the gun. It being someone closely related to the crime made it that much better. Of course, none of the details in the low-res video could clearly identify him or verify without a doubt that that’s what he was doing. Any moderately competent defense lawyer would have a field day shooting down the evidence, particularly since it was obtained with a bogus warrant, and given the quality of the video. But maybe it would be enough to coerce a confession.
I was satisfied. I went to bed.
Chapter 27
“Bill, I’ve got good news and bad news.”
Why do people always say that when there’s seldom enough good news to offset the bad news? This time was different. The good news was great, and the bad news wasn’t all that bad.
I was sitting at my desk spinning the DVD on the tip of a pencil. My cell phone was “on speaker” like they say. Rodney sat at his desk and listened.
“What’s the good news?” Bill asked.
“I have evidence that clears Buford Overbee.”
Bill sighed. “So what’s the good news?”
“Seriously, I have a video of someone planting something in the trunk of his car the day of the murder.”
“Okay, what’s the bad news?”
“Well, given that your case is in the dumpster, I am hoping you’ll help me with the interrogatio
n. We need a confession to wrap it up.”
“You want to grill the suspect here in the room?”
“That would be best.”
“What do I tell the boss?”
“Tell him you’re reinforcing the case against Overbee so that a slick lawyer doesn’t get him off.”
“How about if I come over there and look at your evidence? With all the budget cuts, I can’t commit department resources on a hunch, particularly for a closed case.”
“My door is always open, Bill. Look on the bright side. Here we can drink. How soon can you be here?”
“Hear that knock on your door?”
About an hour later, Bill was sitting across from me with a drink in his hand. I told him how I got the video and what the Overbee clan had said about their shopping trip. The date/time stamp on the video established the time frame.
I ran the video start to finish on Rodney’s laptop. Bill leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, and watched intently.
“Well, Stan, that sure is a nice piece of evidence,” he said when the video had played out.
He turned away from the laptop monitor and sat back in the chair across from my desk. “Only problem is it’s circumstantial. You can’t make out the face, no clear shot of either license plate, and you can’t tell what the guy put in the trunk. Not to mention that we shouldn’t even be looking at this thing since the warrant was phony.”
“But the coincidences are compelling,” I said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“First,” I said, “the panel van is from the company Sproles works for. Second, Sproles was out on a bogus service call at that time. I have a copy of the service order. Next, the image matches his description. Finally, how many white Rolls Royces are there in this town? It goes on and on.”
Bill wasn’t moved by my arguments. It usually took a lot to get him to back off.
“But there’s loose ends too,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like this video was made the afternoon after the killing. Only a few hours. How did he know where the Rolls would be parked that quick? From what you told me, Overbee’s wife went shopping on a whim. Where did the gun come from? There’s no record of it anywhere, and all of Overbee’s guns are unregistered.”
I wanted him to see the big picture, but he was buried in the details. Our different approaches to solving crimes always worked off one another. But that was when we were on the same side.
“Even so,” I said, “all things taken together, it adds up. Sproles killed Vitole and then planted the gun to frame Overbee.”
“I guess that’s possible. His wife saw Overbee’s car at the Vitole house that morning. But why plant it? Why not just toss the piece in the river?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, all these unanswered questions, what do you want to do?”
“Let’s get him in the room and beat a confession out of him.”
“Get me more, Stan. We don’t have enough. Maybe Sproles’s wife can add something. Maybe Mrs. Vitole.”
I filled his glass. He took a sip and listened.
“Maybe we can turn them all on one another. We interview them separately and offer a deal to the first one that spills, and they rat one another out. It’s worked before.”
We both lit cigarettes, Bill his next, me my last.
“Where would we do that?” he asked.
“At the house. In the room.” The house was headquarters. The room would be one of the interrogation rooms. The best place to question a witness. Police territory and a stark, intimidating place. Made you look for the bright light and rubber hose.
“Not on your Aunt Matilda’s straw hat. The boss sees you and me dancing around the squad room with witnesses on a closed case, I go down harder than you did. Ain’t gonna happen. I like my job.”
“Why not show the video to the boss?”
“That’s a thought. He’s usually pretty fair when it looks like we have the wrong perp. He’ll be pissed though. Reopening a closed case always gets attention upstairs.”
“Who’s prosecuting?”
“ADA Weatherly. New guy.”
“Okay. Here’s what let’s do. Get Weatherly in. Show him the video. Tell him Overbee’s lawyer has it, which he will. The defense will be allowed to use it in court because it’s exculpatory. Tell them they’ll have lots of egg on their face in court and in the press if it comes out that they knew about it and prosecuted anyway.”
Bill looked at me with a worried look on his face.
“Stan, what if they find out how you got it?”
“How could they? I didn’t leave a copy of the warrant. The rent-a-cop was so happy to be working with the police, that he never asked for it.”
That didn’t seem to satisfy Bill, who didn’t like to speculate.
“But he’ll tell them you had one. And that you flashed a badge and impersonated a cop.”
“I never said I was a cop. And he didn’t see the warrant up close. No big deal. His word against mine.”
“We have to tell Weatherly,” Bill said. “He has to know everything if he’s going to be on our side.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him the whole enchilada.”
“I didn’t want it to come to all this, Stan. I’m going to be in a world of hurt. But, I’ll survive. I think this video will be enough to get your guy released. They won’t be able to use it against the perp, though, because of how you got it.”
“Can’t you get a real warrant for the videos?”
“Nope. Probable cause comes from your video. Fruit of the poisonous tree. Let’s see how this plays out before we figure out what’s next.”
I gave him a copy of the video.
He pulled his overcoat on. “When do I get to hear the good news?”
Chapter 28
We sat in a conference room in the courthouse. I sat next to Bill Penrod. Across the table from us was ADA Phil Weatherly. Rodney was there in case we had any technical questions, but I had instructed him to observe and speak only when spoken to.
William and Marsha Sproles were in a waiting room while we briefed Weatherly. We showed him the video, and I briefed him on my investigation.
Weatherly excused himself and made a call on his cell phone. When he was done, he said, “That gun was the only piece of physical evidence we had on Overbee, and this video casts a lot of doubt on its credibility. I just talked to the DA. He’s releasing Overbee from house arrest as we speak.”
Right about then, Bill’s cell phone signaled. He pulled it out and looked at it.
“Text from the DA. I am to go pick up the ankle bracelet.”
“Overbee will be glad to see you,” I said.
“Uncle Stanley, what about—”
“Shut up, Rodney.” Let the cops figure out how Buford got the bracelet off.
Bill sent word for the Sproleses to come in. We introduced them to Weatherly.
“Why are we here?” Sproles asked. “We already told the police everything we know.”
“We need you to look at a video. It might convince you to change your story.”
I started the video on Rodney’s laptop and turned it around so Mr. and Mrs. Sproles could watch it. Marsha showed no reaction to the video. Sproles himself didn’t speak either as the video played. But he turned an ashen shade of gray when he saw the service van pull up next to the Rolls.
When the video showed him getting out of the van, he said, “I think I need a lawyer.”
“This is not an official interrogation,” Weatherly said. “You haven’t been charged or read your rights. Nothing you tell us can be used against you. We’re just trying to tie up some loose ends, this visit to Overbee’s car being one of them.”
Sproles just sat there, saying nothing.
“If you don’t want to talk to us, that’s okay,” Bill said. “Just listen to what we have to say.”
Sproles sat there with his lips tightly closed and his arms folded, glaring at me.
“We know you are in witness protection,” Bill said.
Sproles reacted visibly.
Bill continued. “We know Vitole used to be a handler. We know that he had been blackmailing witness protection clients. We know that he had been having an affair with your wife.”
Bill slid copies across the table of the pictures I had taken of Vitole and Marsha. Sproles looked at the pictures, put his face in his hands, and rocked from side to side. Marsha Sproles still didn’t react.
“And we know from this video that you planted the murder weapon in Overbee’s car.”
“I do need a lawyer,” Sproles said.
“Yes, you do,” Weatherly said. “So don’t talk if you don’t want to. But listen.”
Bill continued.
“This can go several ways. If the feds see this video, or if we charge you with this murder, tampering with evidence, or anything else, you’re out of witness protection and back in prison.”
“And dead,” Sproles added. “Marsha too. They’ll figure she knows what I know.”
“Who’s they?” Weatherly asked.
“Drug dealers in Baltimore,” Sproles said. “The guys I am testifying against.”
“So you see what’s at stake here,” Bill said. “If you want any kind of deal, you better talk to us now. You can get a lawyer if you want, but as soon as that happens, all deals are off the table and you get charged with, at the very least, accessory after the fact. At the worst, first degree murder. A date with the needle.”
Marsha Sproles spoke up for the first time. “That video. You can’t tell that it’s William. The details are blurred.”
“That’s because we’re watching the raw version,” I said. “The enhanced version is still being processed. It will show not only your husband’s face but the license plate numbers too.”
“Uh, Uncle Stanley—” Rodney said.
“Not now, Rodney.”
“But—” he said.
“Clam up and observe,” I said. He did. I wanted them to believe that the lab could do what they’d seen done on CSI, NCIS, and other cop shows countless times. It was all bullshit, but they didn’t know that.