by Wayne Zurl
Chalmers forced a phony smile. “Umm. Wonderful. I applaud your generosity, but let’s go back to the reason you’re here and the information you’re so afraid may leak to the media.”
I thought we might have skated past that one, but Chalmers was no slouch.
Ralph spoke up. “We believe Ryan Leary may have committed another crime. We think he may have done something to someone else—worse than the beating he gave Farris. We’d like to find more evidence to substantiate that.”
Chalmers’ eyebrows went up two inches, and a big smile crossed his face. “And you want me to forget I heard about this? If Leary has beaten other subjects, I’d love to introduce it at trial and establish a pattern of behavior.”
Bonnie answered that. “Relax, counselor. If we’re successful in establishing Leary’s guilt here, you can use whatever you know to establish your fair preponderance of guilt. We wouldn’t begrudge you that. It’s something you’d learn from the news. Now, let’s get back to having Mr. Tingle help us out.”
Chalmers wouldn’t let up. “What do you think Leary did?”
“Something more than he did to your client,” Ralph said. “Look, your representation during the civil rights portion of this affair may be pro bono, but you can’t expect us to believe you aren’t operating on a contingency with the civil trial. You have a vested interest in us learning as much derogatory information about Leary as possible. We win, you win, and certainly Mr. Tingle goes home with more money than he ever envisioned in his entire life.”
“Point taken, Mr. Oliveri.” The lawyer thought for a long moment. “You think Leary killed someone. You have no complainant. You have a body?”
We didn’t answer for an equally long moment, but I felt compelled to break the ice. “And what you envision would look great in civil court, wouldn’t it? So, let’s get to it, and if Farris comes up with something good, you both hit pay dirt.”
Chapter Eighteen
Perry Chalmers’ secretary, an almost pretty, well-dressed brunette of around forty-five, walked in after knocking. She handed Farris Tingle a twelve-ounce plastic bottle of Mountain Dew and set a glass tumbler on a soapstone coaster lying on the big cocktail table that separated us all.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said to Tingle. “I couldn’t find a Mello Yello. I hope this will do.”
Farris smiled, showing a missing canine on the top left. I wondered if Ryan Leary had knocked it out.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said. “That’ll be fine. Thank ya.”
The secretary left. Farris twisted off the cap and took a long drink from the spout.
“Tastes better from the bottle,” he said.
“Farris,” I said, “Let me tell you a little about what we’re going to do.”
He stared at me without blinking, his eyes open very wide, accompanied by an otherwise blank expression.
“I’m interested in what you saw in the black SUV and what you found in the duffle bag.”
As he nodded, his entire upper body moved forward and back. He looked like something out of a carnival sideshow.
“If you don’t mind, sit on the couch next to my chair. Being closer works better.”
He frowned and looked to Chalmers for approval. Chalmers nodded. Farris still looked apprehensive.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hit you,” I said.
His head pivoted, again looking to Chalmers for instruction.
“Go ahead. Sit next to him,” the lawyer said.
Tingle placed his sweaty soda bottle on the wooden tabletop next to the coaster and moved himself to the sofa on my right. Chalmers gave his client a dirty look and swapped the wet bottle for the dry glass sitting on the soapstone. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his back pants pocket and wiped the ring of moisture from the mellow glow of the waxed walnut tabletop.
I shifted my chair forty-five degrees to face Tingle.
“To make this easy on you, Farris, don’t look at anyone or anything in the room. Just look at me, or if it helps you relax and remember, close your eyes. Mr. Chalmers will be right here if you need him.”
The kid nodded.
“Now, let’s go back to the night you found the black bag. Where was the bag in the SUV?”
“Back seat.”
“Did you see anything else in the SUV?”
“Nosir.”
“Nothing?”
“Don’t remember.”
“The door was unlocked, and you picked up the bag?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you open it then?”
“’Course not.”
Farris was a man of few words. I wanted to smack him.
“Tell me what you did.”
“Walked away.”
“You didn’t run?”
“Wouldn’t do that.”
“Where did you go?”
He shifted his eyes to Chalmers and waited. Chalmers nodded, looking a little impatient. Then Farris looked over toward Ralph and Bonnie. His eyes remained there for a moment. I assumed to check out Bonnie’s legs. I snapped my fingers.
“Come on back, Farris. Look at me.”
I repeated my last question. “Where’d you go next?”
“‘Bout a block away. There’s a vacant lot with trees.”
“And you opened the bag?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was night. How did you see?”
“Got me a l’il flashlight.” He said that as if only a fool would need to ask. The need to smack him came back to me.
“Tell me what you saw in the bag.”
“Sir, I done tol’ ya this b’fore.”
“I know. Indulge me. Let’s hear it again.”
When Farris first sat on the sofa, he had crossed his legs and as we spoke, his raised foot jiggled to the rhythm of an unheard tune. As his foot moved, he tapped the first two fingers of his left hand on his thigh.
“Well, I seen them porno DVDs.”
“They were in plastic cases?”
“Yessir, all of ’em.”
“How many?”
“Don’t know. A bunch.”
“How many is a bunch?”
“Not sure.”
“More than three?”
“Uh-huh.”
I was getting impatient. Farris kept jiggling and tapping away.
“Fifty?” I asked.
“Not that many. Ten or twelve, mebbe.”
“What else did you find?”
“Crack.”
“Little vials?”
“Not so li’l. Bigger, like a dealer might have. Couple o’ fifty dollar vials, couple o’ hunnert dollar each.”
“How many?’
“I didn’t take none.”
I kept my voice soft, without a hint of accusation. “I didn’t say you did. How many did you find?”
He began blinking rapidly. “Six.”
“That many large vials cost a lot of money.”
“Yessir, lots. Didn’t take none, though.”
“I know you didn’t. You once said that you saw a black handgun. Is that correct?”
“Uh-huh, but didn’t touch it. Don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout guns.”
I nodded, and we went through a few more inconsequential items we already knew about.
“Now close your eyes, Farris, and think hard.” And forget about Bonnie’s thighs. “Focus on the black bag, just as you saw it that night. What else was in that bag?”
His shoulders tensed up, and he straightened a bit from the slouching position he’d been in. He stopped jiggling his foot and tapping on his leg. He opened his eyes.
“Nuthin’.”
I don’t claim to be a human lie detector, but it’s not difficult to read someone’s body language—especially if they tell a whopper.
I slid my chair a foot closer to Farris and leaned in. “I want you to think hard now. Focus on the inside of the bag. What else did you see? Was there a knife? Were there any more drugs?”
Those two prompts didn’
t get a rise from him. In fact, he relaxed a little, and his left index finger began tapping his thigh again.
“Think hard, son. If you help us find what we’re looking for it could mean you’ll get lots of money in your civil suit. Give us a hand, and you could be a rich man.”
Tingle frowned to where his eyes were only slits. I could almost smell the gears inside his head grinding. Another gentle nudge might just tip him over the edge.
“Was there something in the bag that you may have taken out—by accident? Something you put in your pocket and didn’t remember until just now? What else was in the bag?”
The finger stopped. He uncrossed his legs and straightened up in the chair, sitting forward, looking at me defiantly.
“I tol’ ya, sir. I didn’t see nuthin’ more.”
“You look like you’re getting upset, Farris. If you took something from the bag, it’s okay. You won’t be punished for it. Mr. Leary will not harm you. I won’t harm you. Tell me what you saw.”
Farris began blinking again, like a flashing strobe light. He shot a look at Chalmers, who sat there impassively, and then jerked his head back to me.
“Counselor,” I said, “it seems as if your client has something to say, but he’s reluctant. A little help, please.”
The lawyer gestured with his hand. “Come over here, Farris.”
The boy stood.
Chalmers gestured again and then pointed to the chair next to his. “Sit.”
They spoke in whispers for a very long moment.
Chalmers leaned away from Tingle and straightened his tie. “Go back and tell the man.”
Farris returned to the couch. He sighed. “A cell phone.”
My eyes popped wide. I gave Ralph and Bonnie a quick look.
“A cell phone was in the bag?”
“Yessir.”
“Where is it now?”
“I ditched it.”
“Why?”
“Figgered it might have a GPS chip, and somebody’d track me.”
Farris Tingle was obviously more tech savvy than I might have thought.
“Where did you ditch it?”
“The woods where I checked the bag.”
“Was there anything else besides the phone that you found in the bag and haven’t mentioned yet?”
“Nosir.”
I looked at Chalmers. “Would you mind if we took Mr. Tingle to the woods to retrieve this cell phone?”
Chalmers shook his head and shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“Will you be coming with us?”
Not exactly dripping with enthusiasm, Chalmers said, “Let me know what happens.”
I called the PD and asked Bettye to send John Gallagher and two cops to meet us at the wooded lot near Ryan Leary’s home to help secure the area and search for the cell phone Farris said he tossed away.
Thirty-five minutes later, I pulled up behind a Prospect PD cruiser parked across from the vacant land. John and POs Lenny Alcock and Billy Puckett stood on the blacktop leaning against the sector car. Ralph parked his silver Ford behind my car. He, Bonnie and Tingle stepped out.
“Okay, Farris,” I said, “What are we looking for?”
“Cheap l’il cell phone. One o’ them Walmart specials.”
“About where do you think it landed?”
“Not sure.” He stepped into the woods, weaving his way between the scrub foliage and pointed to a spot fifteen to twenty feet from the roadway. “I was ‘bout here and tossed it back there someplace.”
“Okay, guys, let’s spread out, and take a look.”
“Hang on, Boss,” John said. “I got an idea and something that might help.”
He took a pink smart phone from his pocket, played around with it for a few moments and made a production of pushing a button. From fifty feet inside the woods the stylized ring of a cell phone sounded off.
Gallagher got a stupid grin on his face. “There ya go, Boss. Easy, huh?”
I scowled at him. “Yeah, John. Good work.” I turned toward Alcock and Puckett. “Guys, find that phone.”
The two uniformed cops carefully walked toward the ring. I looked back at John.
“What?” he said as if I had a problem. “I took Rosanna Wakefield’s phone out of property. I hit the redial when I saw ‘Andy’s’ number and wah-la. Ain’t technology great?”
Ralph and Bonnie returned Farris Tingle to his attorney’s office and took the cell phone to an FBI evidence recovery team technician to be dusted for fingerprints. That done, they turned the phone over to a communications specialist working with the Strangler task force. Ralph said he’d call with the results.
At quarter to five, my phone rang.
“They lifted a beauty off the battery,” Ralph said, sounding especially upbeat. “Our latents guy took care of the search work and matched it to Leary. Charlie, the commo guy, says that phone is a treasure chest of numbers and texts. In short, paly, Leary is dog chow.”
“Is Heidi getting a warrant?”
“Of course. Bonnie hand carried the application to our favorite judge—a guy who always keeps his mouth shut.”
“Good. Is Heidi going to call J.R. Tolbert and have him surrender his client?”
“That was mentioned, but Corliss stuck his nose in and suggested that we just take Leary off at his house. Heidi is more civilized than Corliss, but everyone else liked the idea so much, she agreed.”
“Sounds like Corliss is good for something.”
“He’s not so bad, just a real mover and shaker. The kind of guy you never turn your back on.”
“I know the type.”
“We should have that warrant back shortly—before six anyway. The judge won’t file anything until tomorrow. We’ll pick him up in the morning.”
“Good. Want company?”
“I thought you’d be interested, so I asked. Mizz Piper approves your presence.”
“Nice of her,” I said sarcastically. “Listen, save the SWAT team and battalion of agents for something else. You and Bonnie meet me here tomorrow. I’ll get a bunch of cops to cover the back door and we’ll have him in cuffs lickety split.”
“Okay, I can sell that.”
At nine the next morning, Ralph and Bonnie walked briskly into Prospect PD wearing their fighting clothes and FBI raid jackets—navy blue windbreakers with large yellow letters front and back and the FBI seal over their hearts.
I had arranged to have Stan Rose and two off-duty cops in to assist with the arrest.
Bettye was sitting at my desk while Terri Donnellson took a turn answering the phone and dispatching the radio cars. John Gallagher was drinking coffee, itching to hit the road with me.
* * *
We pulled up in front of Leary’s house at 9:20. John, Stanley and the two uniforms jogged to cover the sides and back. Bonnie, Ralph and I approached the front door. I pressed an illuminated doorbell button. Chimes sounded off within the house.
We waited a long moment—nothing. I tried again. After another few moments, still nothing.
“That bastard,” I said.
“I’ve got his number,” Ralph said and tapped it into his cell phone and let it ring. After a short wait, He shook his head. “Seven rings and it went to voice mail.”
I began to percolate. “He’s breaking chops.” I pounded on the door. “Ryan, it’s Sam Jenkins. Answer the door.”
“Save your breath,” Bonnie said. “He’s either not here or not coming out. Maybe someone tipped him off.”
“Who’s monitoring his ankle transmitter?” I asked.
“Federal court officers,” Ralph said.
“You have their number?”
“Yeah.”
He called them.
Two minutes later: “They say the device is inside, and the strap has not been cut.”
“So, he’s playing with us. His SUV is in the driveway. Hang on.”
I called Stan Rose on his cell phone. “Is there a door or back window to the garage?”
“Yeah, back door and side window. What do you need?”
“Look inside. Any cars?”
“Standby.”
Moments later: “Silver Corvette and an empty space. His wife work?”
“At the county mayor’s office. I’ll have Bettye track her down. Meantime, send John up front.”
I telephoned Bettye and asked her to confirm Mrs. Leary’s whereabouts, but not tell her we were about to collar her husband for murder. As I hung up, John Gallagher stopped next to us.
“I want the two cops to keep a watch on this place while you impound Leary’s SUV,” I said. “Call Fleenor’s Body Shop. He’ll have a flatbed here in ten minutes. Then call Earl Biggins and have him secure the SUV in our garage.”
“Okay, Boss.”
“When the wrecker leaves, send one cop to the sheriff’s motor pool and ask their car man for the spare set of keys for Earl.”
John nodded.
“Then you and the other cop park down the street and make sure Leary stays put.”
“Wanna let us in on what’s going on?” Ralph asked.
“We’re going to make Leary come out.”
“I’ll call Heidi,” he said. “She can get a “no knock” endorsement on the warrant. If Leary wants to play cute, we’ll kick the door in.”
“And how long will that take? We’ll have to come back later today or tomorrow,” I added.
“You’re always impatient. What do you have in mind?”
“We’ll be back here in less than an hour and ready to go.”
“And do what?” Bonnie asked.
“Leary has a big libido. We’ll cast a sexy lure and catch the big fish.”
Before going back to the PD, I stopped at Walking Horse Realty on the town square to see my neighbor, Glenda Mae Waddell. A small bell tinkled as I opened the front door.
“Hey, Maezy, what’s goin’ on?”
“Hey ya se’f, Sammy. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I need a favor.”
She batted the lashes over her grey-blue eyes and demurely pated her short blonde hair. “Why, sugar, what is it you wont?” Mae is a shameless flirt.
“Raise your right hand.”
“Okay.” And she did.