by Claire Booth
All right then.
‘Did you know that O’Connell was linked to the theater? That he was on the road with Euford?’ Hank asked.
No. She’d had no idea that Gunner was the one O’Connell traveled with. Not until he showed up with the old dude during the remodel of the theater, and said he wanted a ‘more active role’ in things.
‘And what’d you say to that?’ Sheila said.
‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘He was going to be in town, so, sure.’
‘Bullshit.’ Hank leaned forward. ‘You don’t share, Emily. I think you’re telling us this now, because he’s dead. But you wouldn’t have put up with him contributing in any kind of a serious fashion. That’s not the way you do things.’
She swiped at some nonexistent dust on the table between them. ‘You’re trying to pin this on me. You going to say he tried to take over my operation, so I killed him? No way. He didn’t know enough to take anything over. He wasn’t a threat to me. I didn’t kill him.’
He’d been useful, keeping the remodelers’ attention away from the area with the hidden room. And he kept putting the word out. Other than that, though, his time was taken up with lap dog duties for that washed-up Opry star.
She looked around, daring someone to contradict her. No one did. She slowly crossed her one good arm over her sling.
‘I’ll tell you the rest of what I know – only if I get a deal.’
Hank almost smiled. His faith in the constants of Emily Fitch’s personality had gotten wobbly with all her Robin Hood high-mindedness. But she was reverting back to form, and it was like a warm blanket of selfishness for all of them to wrap up in.
‘You’re not getting a deal.’ Raker spoke calmly, but Hank could see his clenched fist under the table. ‘You’re wanted for about a dozen different crimes in this city. You’re not going to sit there and talk like you’re running this show. You’re going to jail.’
She relaxed in her hard plastic chair as if it were a brand new La-Z-Boy and nonchalantly started examining her manicure. Hank thought Raker was going to burst a blood vessel. He spoke before the detective could.
‘Let’s talk about Johnny Gall,’ Hank said.
She raised a disinterested eyebrow. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘That’s strange, seeing as you manufactured him out of whole cloth,’ he said.
She gave him a look that dared him to prove it.
‘The birth certificate was a provable forgery. You got the name of the hospital wrong. It wasn’t called that until years afterward.’
She started laughing. ‘Damn. Really? I didn’t think to check that.’ She looked at Hank with a slight bit of respect, although technically it was Sam who’d earned it, not him.
‘So, yeah. I did paperwork for that guy.’
‘Why two identities, though?’
‘I did him the standard one, made him older. Then he comes back and says that he’s decided he wants to finish high school here in town.’ Her tone made clear what she thought of that idiocy. ‘So I made him another one, age seventeen. I charged him full freight for that one.’
‘How much is full freight?’ Raker asked.
‘More than you could afford.’
Hank was impressed Raker didn’t lose it right there. He jumped back in.
‘How’d he pay for it?’
‘I don’t know. I figured he talked O’Connell into helping. That one was never hurting for cash.’
‘So they knew each other.’
‘Yeah. We were using Johnny’s apartment. O’Connell knew that.’
‘What was their relationship like?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘How the hell should I know? I’m running a business, not monitoring a bunch of teenagers’ social lives. Why you care about this Gall kid anyway?’
‘He pretended to be your sister’s friend. He lured her into going out Saturday night. And he was sitting next to her when they were killed,’ Raker said.
She glared at him. ‘That’s cold. That is just fucking cold. You’re going to bring my sister into this? You’re an asshole.’
Raker shrugged. Hank was going to let it play out, but Sheila, from her resumed post on the wall, asked if Emily knew Gall’s real name or where he was from. The answer was no.
‘You ever heard the name Evelyn Cluth?’ she asked.
Emily shook her head. ‘Nope.’
All three of them stared at her.
‘Seriously – no. I’ve never heard of her. Is that somebody’s real name? I told you – I don’t know real names.’
Raker was getting antsy. Hank could feel it. The detective reached into the file he’d placed on the table and pulled out a photo of the crime scene that was his priority. He slapped it in front of Emily. She glanced at it and then resumed glaring at Raker.
Hank sat back and considered that as Raker started in with more questions. She hadn’t even flinched. And it was the worst picture they had – O’Connell’s body in the pool of his own blood, face slack and body contorted.
Emily’s answers were getting increasingly uncooperative. He started to worry that she was going to ask for a lawyer again. He waited for Raker to pause for breath and spoke.
‘Where’s his wallet?’
She shifted her gaze from Raker to Hank.
‘How would I know?’
‘Because you took it. Because you took it, and whatever equipment was left in that apartment.’
‘Nope.’
‘Yep.’ He matched her stare. ‘I bet you were worried about the ID. Weren’t sure it’d hold up under the kind of scrutiny that comes with a murder investigation.’
She didn’t respond.
‘Theft is a whole lot better of a charge than murder. Because this guy right here –’ he pointed to Raker – ‘is about two seconds away from charging you with murder. You’re our only suspect.’
She swept her hand across the table again. ‘Well, then you’re stupid. Because I didn’t kill him.’
She was talking, but Hank could tell that her calculating mind was weighing the odds. He waited for her to circle around to where he wanted her.
‘And,’ she said after a split-second pause, ‘you’re never going to know who really did kill him if you don’t make a deal with me.’
Excellent.
FORTY-FOUR
Mr Raker was busy yelling at a man Sam recognized from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Sheila and the Chief stood well clear, on the other side of the room. Emily Fitch was still in the interview room, looking bored and lazily picking at her fingernails. Then things really got interesting. A lady in a business suit blew in and closed herself in with Emily. The prosecuting attorney guy and the lady then had a serious discussion in the corner, which caused Mr Raker to come over to where Sam was standing and swear a lot.
Sam extricated himself from Mr Raker’s line of fire and pulled Sheila aside to tell her that the prostitution suspect’s bail was paid in cash by someone matching the description of Eric Ganton-slash-Patrick O’Connell. Detective Bianchi was still looking for her, and after talking with Sam, was now also after the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services to see if her real identity matched a foster kid in the system.
He was about to ask what the heck was going on when the two people in suits finished talking. They all trooped back into the interview room. He slipped in, too, and stood in the corner. No way he wanted to be watching from outside right now.
‘We have agreed,’ the prosecutor said, ‘that if your information is material to the homicide investigation – as determined by these officers, not you – then my office is prepared to drop any theft charges related to the wallet or obstructing an investigation. We also will reduce the pursuit incident to reckless driving, and not charge you with the theft of the vehicle from Pete’s Priority Plumbing. But the false ID documents, that’s a whole different story and is not included in this deal. Understand?’
Emily and her attorney nodded. Mr Raker looked pretty resigned. But both the Chi
ef and Sheila seemed more curious than anything else. Sam wondered why.
‘Talk,’ Mr Raker said. Sam didn’t blame him for wanting to take back the interrogation from the prosecutor dude.
Emily looked from person to person, taking her time. She lingered on Sam, which made him extremely uncomfortable. He hoped he didn’t look it. It was like she could see straight inside him. She finally turned away and focused on Mr Raker.
‘I have the knife.’
The lady attorney had an ‘I told you so’ expression on her face. Mr Raker looked like he’d been punched.
‘What?’ he croaked.
‘You were right,’ she said, looking at the Chief. ‘I took the wallet. I got to the apartment and he was dead.’ She pointed at the file on the table with photos poking out of it. ‘He had the first Minnesota ID I’d made. I figured there was no reason to leave it there, in case I hadn’t gotten it quite right.’
So she’d taken the entire wallet, a camera that was the only equipment left in the apartment after the move into the theater room, and the knife. He didn’t have a cell phone on him, or she would’ve taken that, too. She hadn’t seen anyone.
She’d gone there to tell him to cool it. He had been jumpy the last week or so. Had demanded to know what she knew about Johnny Gall, and if she’d made him any other fake birth certificates besides the Kalin and Gall ones. She’d thought the two of them were friends, but suddenly it seemed like an obsession. At least on O’Connell’s part. She didn’t know about Gall. She hadn’t see him lately.
The Chief looked at Sheila. She nodded slightly.
‘You know anything about O’Connell being Euford Gunner’s son?’ the Chief asked.
‘The old geezer singer? No idea. He never said he was. And he wasn’t shy about saying how much Euford depended on him, how valuable he was, blah, blah. So I think if he was the old guy’s son, he would’ve said so. He was the type of person who totally would’ve let you know that kind of status.’
Mr Raker waved his hand impatiently. ‘Where’s the knife?’
In the woods adjacent to the property her father Mick was living on. She gave directions. Mr Raker left the room immediately. The three of them moved more slowly and followed the Chief down the hallway to the coffee machine in the break room. Sam wondered why Hank hadn’t insisted on going along on the knife search.
The Chief poured a cup and looked at them and waited. Sam caught himself tugging at his earlobe. He knew the Chief was looking for something in particular. He thought back. It had to do with Mr Gunner’s son. That’s what the Chief had just asked Emily about.
‘O’Connell was asking Emily that,’ Sam said, thinking it through as he talked, ‘because he thought Johnny Gall had asked for a fake Evelyn Cluth birth certificate. That Gall was going to pretend to be Mr Gunner’s son. And if Mr Gunner had a son, why would he need Patrick anymore?’
‘Exactly.’ The Chief sipped from his Styrofoam cup.
‘But Gall wasn’t pretending,’ Sheila said. ‘The Evelyn birth certificate genuinely belonged to him. That is his real name. It’s got to be. And somehow O’Connell found the birth certificate. That discovery sent him to Emily, and then when she said she hadn’t made another fake one, he concluded it was real – which was even worse.’
‘But then wouldn’t Gall be the one who was murdered? That O’Connell would kill him to keep his own thing with Gunner?’ Sam said.
‘They could’ve gotten in a fight about it,’ Sheila said. ‘And O’Connell lost.’
‘And then Johnny just went ahead with his Saturday night plans?’ Hank frowned. ‘Joined up with his friends to have fun? I don’t know …’
‘It would make a great alibi,’ Sheila said. ‘Which, if you’ve just killed somebody, is something you’d be thinking about.’
‘Good point.’
‘We’re still in the same spot without a DNA warrant, though,’ Sheila said. ‘We need Gunner to agree.’
‘If we find Gall’s prints, I think we’ll have a stronger case with the judge,’ Hank said. ‘So now we wait for the knife.’
It didn’t take long. Raker seemed to have sent the entire police force into the woods off Highway 248. They returned in what looked like a parade line, led by Brian Handlesman holding two evidence bags.
‘What’s in the second one?’ Hank asked.
Raker’s bullfrog mouth curled upward. ‘The wallet.’
Hank lurched forward in surprise and almost grabbed the detective’s arm before stopping himself. ‘Really? That’s fantastic … wait, and you didn’t call me?’
Sheila stepped on his foot. Hard.
Raker’s mouth returned to its normal position. ‘No. I. Did. Not.’
Another foot stomp from Sheila. Hank took a step back. ‘No problem. Just a gut reaction.’
Raker gave him a sideways squint and followed his evidence tech into the crime lab. Hank, Sheila, and Sam crowded in after him. Handlesman eyed them all and asked which bag they wanted him to open first. Hank kept his mouth shut, helped by another jab of pressure on his toes. He decided to move away from Sheila.
Handlesman removed the bifold from the bag, photographed it, and opened it. There was no ID. Hank snorted with laughter. ‘I’ll bet she incinerated it that night. She wasn’t going to take any chances with that.’
Raker nodded. He poked at the wallet with a gloved finger. ‘He did manage to get himself a credit card.’
Handlesman pulled out the card, which was the only other thing in any of the wallet slots. He then slowly peeled apart the leather, sticky with dried blood, to get at the currency. After several minutes of careful work, he extracted three dollar bills and a folded piece of paper. He bagged the currency – everyone else couldn’t take their eyes off the paper.
It could be a grocery list, Hank told himself. Or a receipt from Dick’s 5 & 10 on Main Street. It probably wasn’t anything.
Raker tired of waiting and picked it up. He cautiously unfolded it and let out a low whistle.
‘Dear Evelyn Cluth …’
Hank leapt forward. Sheila elbowed Handlesman out of the way. Sam scrambled around the table. Raker held the letter up for better viewing.
Dear Evelyn Cluth,
You may not know it, but you have a son. My name is Evelyn Cluth Jr and I am 17 years old. My mother was Pamela Helbing. She’s dead now. I was in foster care in Kentucky for a while but it wasn’t the best place so I ran away. I tried to find you but I never could. Then I met a private investigator who showed me how to research people. I found your birth certificate in Memphis. Then I found a little ad in the old Nashville Banner newspaper for a show with a guitar player named Evelyn Cluth. The picture looked exactly like the pictures for Euford Gunner. You must have changed your name for the music business. I wanted to find you, but I needed a new ID, because the foster people were looking for me. I heard that you could get one in Branson, so I hitched up here. Then I found out that you were going to be starting a show in Branson. So I decided to wait for you.
I would really like to meet you. I’m writing my cell number at the bottom. I never had a dad, and it would be really nice to have one now.
Sincerely,
Ev Cluth
They all exhaled at the same time. Hank sank shakily onto a stool near the work counter. The kid had just been trying to find his father, and now he was dead.
‘This confirms that O’Connell knew Gall was a direct threat to his meal ticket,’ Sheila said. ‘And—’
‘You all can find somewhere else to talk, right?’ Handlesman said. He’d taken the knife, a blood-crusted survival-style fixed blade, out of its bag and was holding it like a platter in front of him. ‘Cuz I don’t really need you while I do this.’
They all shuffled out of the room.
‘So the question becomes,’ Sheila continued once they were in exile in the hallway, ‘did that letter ever get to Euford?’
Raker started to answer but Hank was already halfway down the hall. He also had a question, a
nd it wasn’t for any of his colleagues.
He burst into the interview room, making the defense attorney jump. Emily just gave him a slow blink. He pulled up a chair, sat, and put his elbows on the table.
‘When you said that O’Connell had been jumpy lately and started to seem obsessed with Johnny Gall, you mentioned that O’Connell had asked you about other fake birth certificates. Did he mention a name?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. By that point I was tuning him out.’
‘When was this?’
She shrugged again and didn’t answer.
‘I’m done dancing around with you,’ Hank said. ‘You’re going to tell me, and you’re going to tell me now. This has nothing to do with any charges against you, but it is important. So quit the attitude and tell me.’
She gave him a frown that couldn’t decide whether it was bored or arrogant.
‘Fine. A day before he was killed. Why?’
‘How did he react when you said you hadn’t made Gall any more fake ones?’
‘He was pissed. Like he didn’t believe me. Like I was in cahoots with Johnny Gall. Puh-leez. In cahoots with a guy who voluntarily went back to high school when he didn’t have to? Yeah, right.’
Hank studied her pretty face. ‘And that’s how he knew your sister.’
‘I told you, don’t bring my sis—’
‘Stop.’ His hand smacked down on the table, almost of its own accord. Both women jumped this time. ‘I don’t want your after-the-fact protectiveness. You don’t get to do that. You were so intent on being a savior to all these poor, abused runaways that you ignored the one person you actually had a duty to. So now you’re going to answer my questions. Because you owe Hailee that much. You owe her real help, not some bullshit grandstanding.’
He stopped talking and just looked at her. He hadn’t meant to go that far, but when she’d protested again … He sat still and waited, his hand stinging as it lay flat on the cool table.
She swallowed and straightened slightly. ‘I guess Johnny did know her. From school. I have no idea if they were friends or not.’
‘Did Patrick know her?’