Syeeda had interviewed the kids’ teachers and friends, church members and neighbors. She ended the piece with a call for justice and a plea for information with my name and the tip line listed.
I had finished reading the piece but couldn’t take my eyes off the Chatman kids.
“The warrants came back for the family’s financials,” Colin said, “and I found a few things.”
I handed him the newspaper and plopped into my chair. “Wonderful.”
A stuffed envelope with my name printed in thick black ink sat beneath my desktop Christmas tree.
I tossed Colin a hollow smile. “You heard what happened?”
“Yeah. About twenty minutes ago, L.T. went buck wild on the dynamic duo over there.”
That explained Luke and Pepe’s catatonia. PTSD provided by Lieutenant Zak Rodriguez.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“With the captain.”
I licked my dry lips. Will I have a job at the end of that meeting? Stupid mistake, all of us leaving that storage unit. A mistake that had jeopardized the case and, possibly, the successful prosecution of the murderer. And those two thoughts—stupid mistake, murderer free—thrashed about my mind, bucking broncos on speed in a china shop.
I needed to solve the case now, before there was no china shop left.
“Lou?” Colin said.
“Colin?” I logged on to my computer.
He hesitated, then said, “I… umm…”
My fingers stopped tapping at the keyboard. “Yeah?”
He inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “Sorry.”
I gave him a short nod—didn’t want to fight or demand or anything. Just work my case.
After checking e-mails, I looked over to my partner. “Find anything good?”
He brightened, as kicked golden retrievers do once shown some positive attention, and he rolled his chair over to my desk. “Their credit reports show four different accounts with Bank of America, one checking, two savings, one credit. But Christopher Chatman had a separate account at Pacific Western Bank in Thousand Oaks.”
“Juliet wasn’t on it?”
“Nope.” He turned the page. “The Chatmans have racked up $753,610 in debt. They owe everybody, including three credit-card companies, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz Financial—and both of those loans are in arrears—a mall’s worth of department stores, and, finally, the architectural firm that did the remodel for the house and the garage. As for the mortgage statement: the house was paid off back in 1989.”
I squinted at him. “Why are they in so much debt when the biggest bill no longer exists? And, again, how do you spend three million dollars in ten years? I know I grew up like Thelma Evans, but that’s a lot of money. Especially if he’s this hotshot money man.”
“Collecting Beanie Babies?” He held up a finger. “Wait. There’s more.” Then, he pulled out the statements from Pacific Western Bank, with some entries highlighted yellow—specifically, a $5,000 deposit in April, a $12,500 deposit in July, and another $5,000 deposit in September.
I tapped the desktop. “Yesterday, Ben Oliver told me that he had loaned Chatman about twenty thousand dollars. I asked Chatman about the money, and he said it was to cover a large deposit for the kids’ school.”
“You believe him?” Colin asked.
“Eh.” I found the next highlighted transaction: in August, one hundred thousand dollars had been deposited into the account at Pacific Western Bank.
“Who gave him a hundred K?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Colin said. “Still working on it.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Had some time to myself.”
“I should ignore you more.” I rolled over to my file cabinet and unlocked it. I grabbed an envelope Pepe had stuffed with plastic baggies of evidence taken from Chatman’s Jaguar on the first day of the investigation. I grabbed a pair of latex gloves from my desk drawer, tugged them on, opened the flap, and dipped my hand into the pocket. “Let’s see…”
Bank statement from an account used by Juliet and Christopher Chatman for Monday, December 10.
Check card SW Diner – 12.63 Check 2202 – 60.00
Check card Rite Aid – 28.49 La Brea Gas – 72.00
Withdrawal – 60.00 Check card CVS – 19.19
“Two drugstores on one day.” I sat the statement down, then reached into the envelope again. “Nothing remarkable in her last days. Breakfast—one of my favorite places to eat. Gas—she filled up the truck. She got some money out and went to two drugstores. Or she didn’t go to two drugstores—the card used could be his.”
A CVS receipt was stapled to the pharmacist’s instructions for taking diazepam, aka Valium. The prescription had been written for Juliet Chatman.
I placed that receipt on my desk but paused before reaching into the envelope again.
Valium for Juliet Chatman. Monday, December 10, 5:13 P.M. The prescription had been purchased on the last full day of Juliet’s life.
But Juliet had stopped taking Valium back in the summer. According to Dr. Kulkanis, Juliet had been too fatigued to continue taking the drug.
Had she been planning to drug the kids just as Colin suggested?
I stared at the slip until I saw. “Give me the checking-account banking statements from this past August on.”
Colin shuffled through a stack of papers, then handed them to me.
I found August 10: CVS. I flipped to the next month’s statement. September 9: CVS. October 10: CVS. November 11: CVS. “I need to know if Juliet’s debit card was used for these purchases.”
Colin compared the last four digits shown on the CVS receipts to the full account numbers from Bank of America and Pacific Western Bank. “This is his Pacific Western card. Why is that important?”
I picked up the receipt again and looked at the other items Christopher Chatman had purchased: Prescription, 4 Slim Jim, Self magazine, Smucker’s Strawberry Toppings.
My telephone rang—a 702 area code. I hit the speaker button, and before I could finish saying, “Lou Norton,” the caller shouted, “You and your goons need to stop it.” She sounded pissed—the heat of her anger spiked through the speaker.
“Excuse me,” I said, frowning. “Who is this?”
“This is Melissa Kemper speaking, that’s who.”
Colin and I gaped at each other. And then, we both grabbed notepads.
“Good morning, Ms. Kemper.” I snapped the recording device onto the phone.
“For the last twenty-four hours,” Melissa Kemper shouted, “you sons of bitches have been calling my house and hanging up. My tires were slashed this morning, and my trash cans were turned over last night and my bank just called because one of you sons of whores wanted my personal financial information.”
Colin shook his head—wasn’t me.
“Ms. Kemper,” I said, “no one from our division has called your bank. I am investigating a homicide involving family friends of yours, and I was planning to call you today to discuss—”
“I gave Christopher money,” she shouted. “It was a gift. Is that against the law?”
I scribbled on my pad and then turned the pad to Colin. Is she that mystery $100K?
“And it’s no one’s business anyway,” the woman continued. “And Ben Oliver is a sneaky motherfucker, and he’s done some awful, awful shit, and you need to be harassing him and poking around in his private business.” Then, she wept into the phone.
I offered lots of, “Ms. Kemper, please” and “Please, calm down.”
Finally, she took several deep breaths, sniffled, and hiccupped.
“Ms. Kemper,” I said.
“I have nothing else to say to you, bitch.”
And then dial tone—she had hung up on me.
“So?” I sat the receiver back into the cradle.
“I’ll book us a flight to Vegas later today,” Colin said, tapping on his keyboard, “and an economy sedan.”
“Perfect. Now, what number am I thi
nking?”
“Thirty.”
“Sixty-three.” I grabbed the phone and scanned a tacked-up list of my favorite ex-LAPD police officers.
“Who you callin’?” Colin asked.
“Gus Lebo,” I said. “Left us for Vegas a few months before you came.”
No answer.
“Hey, Gus. It’s Lou Norton. I’m working a case that’s leading me into your new territory. Me and my partner will fly in later today to talk to her. Name is Melissa Kemper. We’re just talkin’, but I wanted to give you a courtesy call cuz I’m courteous. Hope you’re well.”
I clicked into the public records database and typed “Melissa Kemper.” “She’s such a pleasant woman. Like a delicate orchid perched upon a single strand of silk.” Her driver’s license picture filled my computer screen.
The joker in drag (as Nora Galbreath had nicknamed Kemper so long ago, or so it seemed) lived in North Las Vegas, on 4821 Wisp o’ Willow Way, in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house. She had no felonies, but she did have three outstanding parking tickets. Most important: no guns had been registered in her name.
“You think she’ll freak out on us?” Colin asked.
I stared at the woman’s driver’s license photograph. “If she does, then we’ll have friends who know we’re there.”
36
MY DESK PHONE CHIRPED AGAIN.
Colin covered his face with his hands. “The harpy’s back.”
“Nope. A plain, ole 323 area code.” I grabbed the receiver. “Lou Norton.”
“Sounds like your horse came through,” the male caller said.
“Mr. Benjamin Oliver,” I said. “So nice to hear your voice this morning.”
“Likewise. I’m down in the lobby, here for my formal interview where you make me sign forms and lock me into a story. May I come up?”
As we waited for the attorney, I took Colin’s elbow. “Do not mention the stolen boxes, understand? You mention those boxes, and that’s it for us.”
“I won’t, Lou.”
I held his gaze a moment more, then released him.
Three minutes later, Ben Oliver stood over my desk holding two coffee cups. He wore a frosted-gray suit tailored by Italian gods and black wingtips cobbled by Italian virgin she-elves.
“Hope one of those coffees is for me,” Colin said.
Ben regarded Colin as though he were a fallen leaf from a common tree. Then, he turned back to me. “I didn’t know if you took cream and sugar.” He offered me the cup in his right hand. “So, I said, ‘screw it,’ and told the girl to give me one of those caramel machi-whatever those are.”
I smiled at him. “You Irish this up like you did yesterday’s cider?”
Colin lifted an eyebrow. “Yesterday’s cider?”
Ben gasped, faking shock. “What type of man do you think I am?”
I knew what kind of man he was, and knowing that made me want to run my caramel macchiato through tox screening. Twice. “Shall we?”
Ben grinned. “Let’s.”
I headed down the hallway to interview room 3.
Ben turned to see that Colin was trailing us.
“Next time,” Colin fake whispered, “choose Italian. She likes shrimp scampi and Lambrusco.”
Interview room 3 smelled like stale popcorn and two-day-old mac and cheese left in a pot on a hot summer day. A rose garden compared with the stinks haunting the other two rooms.
“So,” Colin said, “what’s shakin’, Counselor?”
“Despite Detective Taggert’s inference,” Ben said to me, “I’m here on business. Juliet’s parents are flying in from Mississippi sometime today, and I wanted to talk with you both before they came… And before heading to arbitration proceedings with lawyers from MG Standard.”
I squinted at him.
He shook his head. “Unrelated to the Chatman case. I talked with Christopher before coming here. He believes he may have come off as a jerk last night.”
“These are extraordinary circumstances,” I said.
Ben tapped the lid of his cup. “Guess there’s no right way to act in situations such as this.”
Colin chuckled. “The hell there is.”
I gave my partner the eye. Not now. Because there were correct ways and less correct ways to act. But I wouldn’t share that knowledge with Ben or anyone under investigation.
The attorney stared at Colin, curious about those mysterious ways. Then, he tore his eyes away from my partner to meet mine. “Did Christopher answer all of your questions?”
Colin placed his hands behind his head. “In other words, are we finished investigating him?”
Ben waited for my response.
I cocked my head but didn’t speak.
Ben sighed. “Don’t do that, Elouise.”
I gaped at him. “Don’t do what, Benjamin?”
“Act as though my question is more than what it is. If you were an auto mechanic and I were your customer, and I asked if my car was ready, that doesn’t mean that I thought you were being indolent on the job. Sometimes a lollipop is just a lollipop.”
“Sometimes, it is,” I conceded. “And to answer your ‘just a question,’ no, we’re not finished talking to Mr. Chatman. We have a few more items to cross off the list.”
“Like finding out whose blood that is in his car?” Ben asked.
“For instance,” I said.
“Seems a little… plethoric, wouldn’t you say? To serve a warrant on a man who just lost his family to a fire? Asking him for spit? Blood? Pubic hair? Really?”
“And when would be the right time?” Colin asked. “A month from now? A year?”
Ben kept his gaze trained on me. “We’ve had this discussion, haven’t we?”
I gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “And by me having DNA from Mr. Chatman, we may find out that the blood does not belong to him, and that knowledge may point me in the direction of someone else, thus further expanding my list of suspects. Correct?” I leaned forward in my chair. “Why don’t you want him to cooperate with my very simple request?”
“Very simple…?” He shook his head in disbelief. “First, I didn’t tell him to not cooperate. He’ll do what you’ve asked of him. Second, do you want to know why I’m about to have this meeting with three jackasses from MG Standard?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell us,” Colin said, smirking.
“Last year,” Ben continued, “my client’s son—a twenty-four-year-old private in the U.S. Army—was killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan. A week later, his mother, my client, received a letter from MG Standard saying that William’s insurance-policy payout had been put into an interest-bearing account. They included a checkbook that was linked to that account. But my client didn’t touch the money right then—she’d just lost her son, and she couldn’t even think about spending what he had left her.
“Last month, she finally decided to spend from the account, and she sent a check to Macy’s to pay off a credit card. She wrote a check from her dead son’s so-called interest-bearing account, and guess what? The check bounced.”
The smirk on Colin’s face vanished.
“William’s four-hundred-thousand-dollar payout wasn’t sitting in the bank,” Ben explained. “His four hundred thousand was sitting in MG Standard’s corporate account, earning interest for the company but not for the family of Private First Class and now deceased William Ramos. And the money still isn’t in the kid’s account. Where the hell is that money, and why hasn’t the family received it yet?”
Colin cleared his throat, then said, “We can’t speak to that. I mean, we don’t know—”
“The protean schemes of insurance companies,” Ben completed with a nod. “And I don’t expect you to—that’s my job. I’m only sharing this with you both so that next time, when I ask about the status of the investigation involving this perfidious insurance company, you don’t regard me as the villain. I’m more of the guard dog.”
“But again,” I said, “you called MG Standard on t
he morning of the fire. We didn’t.”
“Indeed,” Ben said with a nod. “Again: I know how they treat their customers. Better to do it when the situation’s just happened.”
“So what are you gettin’ out of this?” Colin asked. “Being the guard dog?”
“Nothing,” Ben said, glancing at his wristwatch. “I am not engaging in sleight of hand. I’m not a beneficiary on the home policy, nor am I on Juliet’s life policies.”
“You know about Juliet’s policies?” Colin asked.
“I helped her select them.”
“We’re only going where the evidence points us,” I said.
“You sure about that?” Ben tossed his empty cup into the wastebasket in the corner of the room. “I have no dog in this fight, Detective Norton. It is axiomatic that I want my friend to heal and to have access to resources that will help him do that. It is also axiomatic that we need your help for him to receive those resources.”
“So when will Mr. Chatman be available for DNA?” I asked. “As I told him, we can come to him, anytime.”
Ben shrugged. “I’ll talk with him today. Don’t worry—you’ll get your precious swab of spit.” Then, he rubbed his hands together. “Now, should I give a formal statement of what I know about this unfortunate situation?”
Colin waved. “You’ll be working with me on that.”
Ben’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Exciting for you.” Then, he turned to me and his smile broadened and his eyes crinkled. He offered me his hand. “Detective Norton, always a pleasure.”
I took his hand into my smaller one.
He squeezed my hand. “Thanks for taking time out to talk.”
“And thanks again for the coffee,” I said, even though I had yet to take a sip.
He ran his thumb across my thumb. “No problem.” He squeezed again and let me go.
37
SOMETIMES A LOLLIPOP IS JUST A LOLLIPOP.
You always see drama where there ain’t none.
Sure, sometimes I needed to mute the voices in my head and ignore my tingling Spidey senses. Those times, however, were few and far between. I had a job to do—uncovering the truth, even if that kept Christopher Chatman from “moving on” with his precious “resources.”
Skies of Ash Page 21