by David Archer
“If possible, that would be great. Just make sure the whole thing is recorded, and preferably on video. I think a video of the session might carry even more weight than an audio recording.”
“Alright, I’ll get it set up. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have an appointment set for it.”
Chance ended the call, then Googled the number for Roger Pinkham, Maggie’s lawyer in Reno. He gave Pinkham the same suggestion, and the attorney agreed to set it up as soon as possible.
With all that settled, Chance allowed himself to slow down. He pulled the Corvette behind a convenience store and shut it off, then sat and tried to gather his thoughts.
What would Pete do? he asked himself. He had come to like the old private eye, but he didn’t have time to let his emotions settle. If he was going to help Yolanda and the others, then he was going to have to figure out how to get the evidence necessary to prove Elizabeth Cardwell was guilty on his own. Pete had been trying to teach him how to be an investigator; now it was time to see if he’d learned anything.
First, however, he wanted to know how Dixon was doing. He picked up the PI’s phone and turned it on again, then dialed Jensen.
“Detective Jensen,” he heard. “Simmons?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Any word on Pete’s condition?”
“Well, it looks like you saved his life. He’s in surgery right now, but he’s expected to make it. If you had been a little slower, he would have bled out. Good job on getting him into the hospital as fast as you did. Now, what are you up to?”
“I just contacted the attorneys for Yolanda Martinez and Maggie Bingham to arrange for them to have hypnosis sessions like Melinda Cummings. I suggested they might want to get them on video, because I think it might have more impact on your DA.”
Jensen chuckled. “That’s good thinking,” he said. “You get me a couple of videotapes like that, I might have a chance of putting a case together. What else are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to prove Elizabeth Cardwell’s guilt. Got any suggestions for me?”
“Not at the moment. We checked her financials, and there’s no obvious money trail anywhere. If she’s profiting from this, it’s hidden pretty damned well.”
“What about Finnigan? She’s working for him, and if she really does know how to brainwash people this way, he’s got an endless supply of killers at his disposal. Any idea how I can prove that?”
Jensen was quiet for a couple of seconds. “Look, Simmons, I understand you want to help Pete,” he said, “but Daniel Finnigan is not somebody you want to mess with. I don’t know how much you know about the Irish Mafia, but they are every bit as bad as the Italian ones. They control an awful lot of the crime in the city, and our OC unit has been trying to bring him down for a long, long time. If they haven’t managed it, you’re not likely to.”
Chance was lost in thought for a few seconds, then he chuckled. “Detective, have you ever dealt with wild hogs?”
“Well, no,” Jensen said. “I’m afraid I’m a city boy. Is there a similarity of some sort?”
“Yeah,” Chance said. “It’s easy to set wild hogs to fighting each other, which makes it a lot easier to find them and shoot the ones you want. The one advantage we have is that Finnigan knows who Pete is, but I don’t think he has any idea who I am. I’ll let you know if I have any luck.” He hung up the phone and looked through Pete’s contacts. Fortunately, the old PI had been adding all his usual numbers as he thought of them, and it took only a moment to find Josephine.
“Pete? I’m beginning to think you like me,” she said as she answered the phone.
“I’m pretty sure he does,” Chance said, “but he’s in the hospital. Pete’s been shot, and I need your help. I’m Bill Simmons, the guy who got Pete off the bottle.”
Josephine was silent for a few seconds, and Chance could hear what sounded like a sob. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked.
“Last I heard he was in surgery, but it looks like he might make it. I know you’ll be worried about him, but I need your help. Are you willing?”
“Just tell me what you need,” the girl said. “How can I help?”
“I need to know about Daniel Finnigan. I understand he’s an Irish mob boss, but I need something that can get me close to him. Got any ideas?”
“Close to Finnigan? Do you have a death wish or something?”
Chance grinned. “Maybe something like that,” he said. “Although, it isn’t my death I’m wishing for.”
“Holy crap,” Josephine said. “Give me a little time and I’ll call you back. I might have an idea.”
The line went dead and Chance laid the phone on the seat. He leaned back and thought about what else he might do, but nothing came immediately to mind. He was still trying to think of something when his phone rang again, and he picked it up to see that it was the lawyer, Kramer, calling.
“Bill Simmons,” he said.
“Mr. Simmons, it’s Alvin Kramer. Listen, I made arrangements for Yolanda to go to Dr. Caroline Wilkinson at four thirty this afternoon. Dr. Wilkinson is a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis in her practice. Unfortunately, I have a case before the judge today that can’t be put off and it’s probably going to go much later than that, so I’m not going to be able to be there. I contacted the detective on the case, Detective Jensen, and he says he’s aware of you and Mr. Dixon, and the theories you brought to the table. Are you comfortable going along with him for this session?”
Chance grinned. “I’ve met the detective,” he said, “and spoke with him on the phone a couple of times. I think he and I can get along well enough for this, because he wants to see proof of this theory as much as we do.”
“Well, good,” Kramer said. “I’ll give him a call now, to let him know that you’ll be going as my representative. He’ll get me a copy of the video, but I really would feel better if you were there to watch and give me your opinion when it’s over.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Chance said. He ended the call, then waited a few more moments for Josephine to call him back on Dixon’s phone. It was only a couple of minutes later when it rang.
“Bill? It’s Josie. Listen, I’m working on something but it’ll take me a couple of hours to put the details together. Is that good enough?”
“That’ll work,” Chance said. “I’m going to be tied up for a while this afternoon, anyway, but let me give you my own number.” He rattled it off to her, and then she was gone.
He’d no sooner than hung up when his own phone rang again, and it was Jensen. “Simmons? Bobby Jensen. I just got a call from the Martinez girl’s lawyer saying you would be going along to see the shrink this afternoon. It’s getting close to time, can you get over here to my office in the next thirty minutes?”
Chance smiled. “I’ll be there,” he said. “Maybe we can talk about the case a little bit? Or maybe you’ll let me take a look at your case file?”
Jensen hesitated. “Look, I really shouldn’t, but I will. I don’t know if it will help, but maybe a fresh set of eyes will see something I missed.”
“I’ll be there.”
TWENTY
Detective Jensen was busy when Chance arrived, and he had to sit and wait for about ten minutes before the detective came out to get him. “Sorry about that, Simmons,” he said. “I was in a department meeting, we've got seven separate homicide cases working right at the moment. The Martinez case isn't really considered a high-priority case, but that's mostly because a lot of the higher-ups figure it's already solved. Kramer got the hypnosis session scheduled, however, just like you asked, and I’m hoping it will help. We can head out there in just a little bit, as soon as the jail notifies me that she’s ready to go.”
“Call me Bill, please,” Chance said. He followed the detective to his office, where he shut the door behind them. “Any word on Pete?”
“He made it through surgery, but he’s in the ICU. Right now, it looks like he’s going to make it, and he definitely has you to th
ank for that.” He sighed. “Okay, Bill. I’m going to let you look at the file,” Jensen said, “but it has to stay between us. I know you’ve been helping Pete, but I'm really not supposed to be letting you see these files. This stays our secret, right?”
“Absolutely,” Chance said. “I'm just looking for a lead, anything I can find. By the way, I wanted to ask you a question. What was your gut feeling, when you first interviewed Yolanda?”
Jensen made a derisive snort. “You want the truth? I thought she was absolutely nuts. The whole idea that someone could commit a murder like this and not remember it, that was just a big stretch for me.”
Chance couldn't help himself, he smiled. “Yeah, I actually thought it was pretty strange, myself, until I got to thinking about everything she said. Most people, if they're lying about something, will go out of their way to make the story as believable as possible. Yolanda claims she can’t remember anything out of that whole month, which is about is unbelievable as I can imagine. To me, that almost makes it makes sense.”
Jensen looked doubtful. “Bill, I’m really not sure I understand what you just said, but I’ll take it on good faith that it made sense to you.”
Chance shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know if it makes sense at all,” he said, “but why would any suspect create a story that’s so incredibly out of the normal realm of possibility? That's out of character for anybody in this position, don't you think?”
“Or maybe it could be that she's pretty smart, and figures putting an unbelievable story out there is a way to get a jury to think there has to be some grain of truth in it. Ever think of that?”
“Can’t say I did,” Chance said. “The thing is, I don’t know Yolanda. I know her mother pretty well, and from everything I’ve heard, I’d say Yolanda is not any kind of superstar when it comes to anything connected to intelligence. If she’s anything like her mother, then whatever’s in her mind is what’s going to fall right out of her mouth, even if it gets her into trouble.”
Jensen smiled smugly and waved a hand in the air. “Well, there you go,” he said. “That's exactly what she's done in this situation, she opened her mouth and threw out a story that’s almost impossible to swallow. If you and Pete hadn’t come up with enough supporting evidence to convince me, I still wouldn’t believe it. Now, do you want to see this file or not?”
Chance grinned and reached for the folder Jensen was offering. He opened it up to find dozens of photographs and a concise description of the crime scene, including specific notes on every item that might have been remotely connected to the murder. The furnishings in the room, the knife, all were clearly described and connected by numbers to the photographs of them. He skimmed through it until he came to the part about the body.
The victim suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. A fairly common Bowie knife of the type sold at most sporting good stores was still present in one of the wounds, and was extracted and bagged for laboratory examination. Each of the wounds displayed bleeding patterns that were consistent with wounds inflicted while the victim was lying down, apparently in the same position in which the body was found. Each of the wounds appeared to the examiner to have been made by the same knife that was extracted.
Blood was also observed in and around the mouth of the victim, indicating that one or more of the wounds must have punctured a lung. The blood pattern on the face was consistent with aspirated blood, ejected forcefully enough to indicate that the victim was choking or coughing at the time.
Chance skimmed through more of the report, but nothing jumped out at him. The victim had been killed on his back and had apparently died quickly, because the amount of blood on the bed was not great. Had he been alive for more than a few seconds, the wounds would have bled more profusely and there would have been a larger pool of blood surrounding the body.
When he finished reading the report, Chance skimmed through the photos. He had never actually seen crime scene photos, but he understood what he was seeing. It just struck him as odd that the man was lying on the bed as if he had been sleeping, rather than the victim of a terribly violent murder.
“You got any idea why he's just laying there as if he was resting? It doesn't look like he even tried to put up a fight, and that should have been an instinct. He's just laying flat on his back, almost like he's completely comfortable there.”
Jensen shrugged. “It turns out one of the stab wounds essentially cut his heart almost in half, so there wasn't a lot of blood getting to his brain. Between that and shock, it's possible he lapsed into unconsciousness in a matter of seconds. We checked for drugs in his system, but it came back negative. This guy probably laid down expecting a good time, and was dead too fast to really even put up any kind of fight. That's what the ME thinks, anyway.”
Chance shook his head. “I’d have to agree. It looks to me like the guy was completely relaxed and never saw it coming. That would fit if this were the crime scene from the Melinda Cummings case, because the way she described it, I’m sure the victim had no idea what was about to happen. Looks like maybe that’s the way our brainwash mastermind sets these up.”
“Okay, I'll give you that, it does sort of look that way. Unfortunately, all the physical evidence still says the Martinez girl was the killer. You can't expect to find anything to prove her innocence in the crime scene report. For that, you need to get solid evidence on this brainwashing theory, and I mean something so solid that it knocks everything else out of the ballpark.”
Chance flipped through the rest of the photos and then closed the file and passed it back. “I know, you’re right,” he said, “but the psychology behind this is fascinating. Just out of curiosity, did anyone mention anything at the scene that didn't seem to belong there? Other than a recently murdered victim, I mean?”
Jensen sat for a long moment without saying a word, then looked down at the top of his desk. “Okay, there was one thing that seemed to catch the CSI team by surprise. Other than the bed, where the victim’s body was laying, the rest of the room seemed to be utterly spotless. It was like she must’ve cleaned up after herself, and that isn’t something we usually see in a murder as violent as this one was.”
Chance looked at him for a moment, chewing his cheek as he did so. “Jensen, I'm just wondering, but has anyone considered the possibility that there might have been someone else there? Could it be possible that someone else actually did this, and they simply made these women believe they were guilty?”
“Okay,” Jensen said. “Do you realize you’re starting to sound like you should be in the twilight zone? Personally, I would find it easier to believe these people were brainwashed into committing murders, than into believing they did it after watching someone else actually pull it off.”
Chance nodded thoughtfully, mentally chiding himself for making such a suggestion. He was sure Dixon never would have done so, so he chalked it up to his own lack of experience. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, when is this session supposed to happen?”
Jensen looked at his watch, then grinned at Chance. “It’s scheduled for twenty minutes from now. Let me call out to the jail and see if they’re on the way, yet.” He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number, then waited for an answer. “Yeah, this is Detective Jensen. Is Yolanda Martinez ready for transport yet?” He waited for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll be there in just a minute.”
He looked up at Chance. “They got her ready. Let’s go, I promised to escort them.”
Chance got up and followed the detective out of his office and through the building until they got outside and into his car. He glanced around cautiously to make sure no one was watching, then slid into the passenger seat.
Chance looked over at Jensen. “Do you ever think about the good old days, when it was easy to tell who the bad guys were? Seems like the world has gone nuts lately.”
Jensen smiled. “Nah, it hasn't gone crazy. It's always been that way, but most people were just too naïve and comfortable
to ever believe it, until the last few years. Now, with the Internet and everything, we hear about stuff almost as soon as it happens, so we have to face up to reality. Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that the world is on a downward spiral, and I’m just hoping for a chance to get off before it crashes.”
Chance laughed as the detective put the car into gear and drove out of the parking lot. It was only a short distance over to the jail, and they pulled up behind a van that was sitting with its lights on and engine idling. Jensen picked up a microphone and spoke into the radio.
“This is Jensen,” he said. “We’re in position and ready for the escort.”
“Ten-four,” came the reply. A moment later, the van started moving and Jensen lifted his foot off the brake to stay close behind them.
Yolanda had been loaded into the van with two officers to escort her to Dr. Wilkinson’s office, though none of them believed for a moment that she was going to offer them any kind of resistance. Every officer and jailer who had dealt with her so far had agreed that, somehow, this woman was not truly guilty of the crime she was accused of, and each of them was hoping that the truth would come out and that Yolanda Martinez would be able to put this horrible thing behind her.
The ride wasn't long, and the van was taken to a back entrance at the doctor's office, so that people on the street and in the lobby wouldn't stare at Yolanda. Besides her orange jumpsuit, she was only wearing a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, but there were shackles on her feet, as well. If she had tried to run, they would have tripped her before she could go ten feet.
Yolanda wasn't going to run, though. She was on the way to find out what had truly transpired during the time she couldn’t remember, and that was the thing she wanted to know more than anything else in the world.
She was taken inside through the back door, and then led into Dr. Wilkinson's office. At the doctor’s instructions, her restraints were removed, but the two guards stood there watching her. Jensen stood right beside Yolanda, but the doctor had the other officers stand as far back against the wall as they could, and then she spoke to Yolanda. A video camera was already in place on a tripod, pointed at the chair where Yolanda would be sitting. Chance was allowed to sit in another chair, where he could watch everything.