by Thomas Scott
“Like you?”
Virgil nodded. “Exactly.”
“I’ve done this before,” the older trooper said. “Guarantee you, I could pass you on the street and you wouldn’t recognize me.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Virgil said. “Work out your rotation, let me know what’s what, then report to the motor pool. You can have your pick of vehicles. Watch your asses.”
They stood to leave and the younger trooper held back a step or two. Virgil raised his eyebrows at him.
“Heard you might be looking to expand.”
“That’s the word,” Virgil said.
“Keep me in mind?”
Virgil grinned at him. “There’s a special sort of mentality that goes with the MCU. Show me what you’ve got, kid. If you’ve got it, I’ll see it, then we’ll talk.”
“Fair enough,” the kid said. He closed the door on the way out and Virgil made a note to himself to go through the kid’s jacket.
The troopers sat on Decker. They spent a week taking him back and forth, from home to work and from work to home. For the first few days, Virgil got multiple reports throughout the day. By the end of the week it was down to one report in the morning and one in the evening. Decker, according to the troopers, was as predictable as the cycle of the sun. “He gets up, goes to work, comes home. Not much else. Grocery store, drug store, that sort of thing.”
Virgil told them to stay with it. He took his truck down to the motor pool. The shop had his lights and siren ready to install.
Sandy spent all her time with Jonas—didn’t leave him alone for a second. She showered when he napped or when Virgil was home…which lately, wasn’t often. Bell’s predictions proved true. Jonas struggled a great deal, even with constant care and attention. Bell had stopped in twice during the week, spent some time observing, and maintained that Sandy was doing an excellent job.
“I just now got him down for a nap. And it doesn’t feel like I’m doing an excellent job,” she said. “It feels like I’m second-guessing myself about everything. Do I do this, or that? I’m never sure what the right thing is.”
“Parenting doesn’t come with an instruction manual, Sandy.”
“It should. And I’ll tell you something else: It seems like he’s mad…at me. I’m the one who’s doing everything for him—Virgil’s helping of course, but he’s busy with everything that’s going on right now—and he gets angry with me. He tries to hide it, in his own little way, but I can see it. It’s there.”
“That’s one of the stages. It’s natural and it will pass. Sooner than you think, too. Look, you really are doing a great job. It’s just hard for you to see. Like him, you’re right in the eye of the storm. Pam was your friend and it’s your loss as well. Don’t forget that.”
“How could I?” Sandy said. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew a strand of hair away from her face.
They were sitting across from each other and Bell, in a doctorly way, leaned forward and touched Sandy’s knee with his index finger. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
“It’s…harder than I thought it might be.”
Bell lifted his finger and pointed at her abdomen. “That’s not exactly what I meant. You’re getting close now. So let me ask you again: How are you holding up?”
Sandy placed her hands on her belly. “My answer isn’t much different. I am getting close. I’m scared, I’m nervous, and I’m exhausted. I think everything I’m feeling right now would be exactly the same, but with Jonas thrown into the mix, it seems much harder. I feel like I’ve lost my focus. For eight months I’ve been thinking only of Wyatt and his birth and our future. But now, caring for Jonas…”
Bell held up his hands. “Sandy, you’re not neglecting your unborn son or your future or anything else for that matter…except maybe yourself. You’re just tired.”
“Tired doesn’t quite say it.”
“Why not get some help?”
“I’ve got this, Bell. Really. I’m putting a family together. It’s just happening all at once and it’s sort of exhausting.”
“Have you heard from CPS?”
“Not a peep,” Sandy said.
Bell pressed his lips together, a frown forming on his face. “That’s a little odd.”
“I was thinking the same thing. On one hand, I’d like to get it over with…the interviews or questions, or whatever. But on the other hand, I’m thinking why rock the boat? There must be some reason they haven’t shown up. Should I call them?”
Bell shook his head. “I don’t know. You’re not doing anything wrong or illegal. You’re taking care of a friend’s child…a child in need. He’s much better off here, with you and Virgil than he would be in any sort of foster care. I think you need to factor in the ultimate question and let that be your guide.”
“The ultimate question?”
“Are you and Virgil…”
“Going to adopt him? Yes. I mean, we want to, but there may be some complications that need to be sorted out. That’s why I’m not sure what to do. I feel like if this goes on much longer and I don’t call, it might look like we’re trying to hide something.”
“And these complications are connected to the case Virgil is working?” Sandy let her eyes slide away and Bell caught it. “I understand if you can’t talk about it.”
“It’s not that I can’t, Bell. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It looks like Pam was connected somehow to the Esser case Virgil and Murton are handling. But the truth of the matter is this: no one knows exactly how.”
“Is there any chance that it’s coincidental?”
“I’m not sure. Based on what I know, I’d have to say that it probably isn’t. That’s what makes our decision to reach out to CPS so difficult. If the cases aren’t connected, I don’t think it will matter. But if they are, then there might be some trouble.”
“You’ve got friends in all the right places, Sandy. Why not take advantage of that?”
“Because we can’t simply pick up the phone and call the governor every time we want or need something.”
“Why not? That’s one of the perks of being friends with someone like that.”
“But it’s also our jobs, Bell. I’m the director of training at the Indiana Law Enforcement Center. Virgil just got his job back at the MCU. He reports directly to the governor’s chief of staff. If it ever got out that we asked the governor to intervene on our behalf to adopt Jonas, we’d not only lose him, our jobs could be on the line as well.”
“You’re over-thinking it, Sandy. You’re also part of a small and elite group…the kind of group where people who need something turn to the people who can make it happen. Do you think the governor would ever hesitate to contact you if he needed something only you could provide?”
“He never has before.”
“Then there’s your answer. You want Jonas? Make a few calls. Make it happen.”
Sandy said she would. Then Bell said something that surprised her. She put her hands on her hips the way her mother used to do after hearing something she didn’t want to hear. “You want to what?”
Bell held up his hands. “I know, I know. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“Helicopters?” Sandy said. She moved her hands from her hips and crossed her arms.
“Why not? I can afford it. I love flying—I’ve got a friend who’s a fixed wing pilot, but helicopters have always fascinated me. And riding along is fun, but I want the control…I want the stick.” He held up a finger to emphasize his point, “But I also want to do it right. I was hoping Virgil could maybe call Mac’s helicopter pilot and get me an introduction. I’m sure he could steer me in the right direction.”
“Oh, Bell. If you hurt yourself…”
“Sandy, I’m doing this whether you help me or not. I just want to talk to the right people before I start taking lessons. So will you help me? Say something to Virgil?”
Sandy was against it, but how could she say no to Be
ll after everything he’d done for them? He’d saved Virgil’s life. Given that, she couldn’t turn him down no matter how she felt. She told him—with some reluctance—that she’d talk to Virgil, and even though she didn’t like the idea, she did like the look on his face when he walked out the door.
22
Because of the outstanding evidence against him in Pam Donatti’s murder, Murton got pulled from all active investigative duties and was placed on administrative leave. With nothing better to do, he was back working the bar with Delroy and Robert. Short on help, Virgil brought Tom Rosencrantz in to assist with the case load. He bounced it off Cora before doing so, mainly because Rosencrantz had been Ed Donatti’s partner, but also because Virgil found himself increasingly unable to trust his own judgment, no matter the speech Sandy had given him only days ago.
Over the course of the next week, Rosencrantz worked the Esser murders down in Shelby County, painstakingly interviewing all the co-op employees, re-interviewing the farmers, and following up on everyone’s alibis.
The toxicology on Martha Esser came back and showed an overdose of morphine as the cause of death and the crime scene report showed something that, in Virgil’s opinion, simply had to be wrong.
“I don’t care what the report shows, Rosie,” Virgil said. They were in Virgil’s office at the state building, Virgil tipped back in his chair with his fingers interlaced behind his head, one heel up on the corner desk, and Rosencrantz in a side chair, a look of defeat on his face.
“I don’t like it any better than you do, Jonesy, but the facts are right there in the report.”
Virgil leaned forward, picked up the report and looked at it for a moment. He waved it in the air before tossing it on his desk. “The facts are wrong.”
The facts went like this: The toxicology showed that Martha Esser had enough morphine in her system to kill three people. The medical examiner’s report wasn’t the part that bothered Virgil. The part that bothered him was what the crime scene people found in Esser’s hospital room.
“It’s all very fitting, isn’t it?” Virgil said. “If you read that file cover to cover you could come to only one conclusion: Pam Donatti walked into the hospital and murdered Martha Esser by injecting her with enough morphine to take down an elephant. The DNA, the hair samples, the fingerprint on the vial of morphine, not to mention the other vial of morphine at her house…it’s all very tidy, isn’t it?”
“It is awfully convenient that the person who allegedly killed Martha Esser is also dead and unable to defend herself.”
“If Decker killed Charlie Esser because he wouldn’t sign the fracking deal down in Shelby County, that means he’s part of it somehow, possibly through his boss, Gordon. Except when Martha Esser signed, the deal went through and Decker kills her too and then the whole thing is set up to look like Pam Donatti was a part of it. Murton too. It’s not making sense. There’s too much noise.”
“Here’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me,” Rosencrantz said. “Why would you kill both of the Essers if they were on opposite sides of the same deal? According to everyone we’ve talked to down there—and that’s almost one hundred people—everyone is saying the exact same thing: Charlie Esser was against the deal. Period. But most of those same people—I’d have to check my personal notes to give you the exact number—say they didn’t know where Martha stood on the deal or what her actual position was.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she signed the deal right from her hospital bed without so much as batting an eyelash. We know she knew about the deal…hell everyone in the county knew about it. So she must have been for it, right?”
“Yeah, but was she for it because she simply wanted the money, or because her husband was dead and she couldn’t run the farm without him?”
That triggered something in Virgil’s brain. “You know what, Rosie? We’ve been looking at this whole thing backwards…maybe.” He was excited, but trying not to get in front of himself.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this whole time we’ve been looking at all of this with the murder of Charlie Esser at the center of the entire case.”
Rosencrantz let his eyelids droop. “Yeah, that’s sort of what we do around here. You should know. You run the joint, remember?”
Virgil ignored the sarcasm. “But we didn’t start at the beginning of the case. Sheriff Holden told me as much last week when Murt and I went down there after they discovered Esser’s body. He said something to the effect that if Charlie Esser wasn’t dead he’d be sitting in county lockup on attempted murder charges for tossing his wife down the stairs and trying to kill her.”
Rosencrantz thought about that for a minute. “So you’re saying even though Martha Esser is dead, her murder happened out of order?”
Virgil pointed a finger at him. “That’s right, and I think it’s the order that is important.”
“So it goes back to motive.” A statement.
“Yep. I think we need to refocus. The entire time we’ve been trying to figure this whole mess out we’ve been looking at Charlie Esser’s murder as the starting point, but the truth of it is, we should be focusing on Martha Esser’s murder. She wanted the deal to go through, just like every other farmer on the co-op board.”
“You may be right,” Rosencrantz said. “But all that does is bring us back full circle because the guy who tried to kill her—her own husband—is dead.”
Virgil was already shaking his head, his impatience growing by the second. “No, no, no. That’s wrong, man.”
“How can it be wrong? That’s exactly what happened.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Yes, Esser tried to kill his wife, but you’re trying to fit the puzzle together the wrong way. We can’t twist the order of the facts to make them fit the way we want.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re talking about motive, remember? And there’s no motive in your full circle scenario. I can see someone killing Charlie Esser because he wouldn’t sign, either because they knew or at least hoped that Martha Esser would if Charlie was out of the picture, or maybe even out of pure hatred and revenge for ruining the deal. That’s motive…plain and simple. But then why kill Martha Esser after the fact? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does. That’s what I’m saying. If someone didn’t want the deal to go through—” Rosencrantz caught himself and stopped.
Virgil saw his wheels turning. “That’s right. It makes no sense whatsoever to kill Martha Esser. She had already signed. The deal was done. Killing her after the fact doesn’t stop the deal. It’s a non event…deal wise. The Esser’s didn’t have any heirs.”
“What about the other farmers?”
“What about them?”
“If both Charlie and Martha Esser are dead, and they are, what happens to their portion of the deal? Does it go back into the co-op? Do the other farmers benefit?”
“Not according to Westlake. He showed us all the paper, and Becky researched the hell out of it. With both Charlie and Martha Esser dead and without heirs, their estate, including their portion of the gas deal goes to the state. There’s something missing…some element that we’re not seeing. Something that ties Pam Donatti’s murder to the Esser murders. And we need to find it.”
“Have you considered the fact that they may just be coincidental?”
Virgil leaned across his desk. “Of course I have,” he snapped. The look on Rosencrantz’s face left Virgil ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry.”
Rosencrantz raised his eyebrows. “You want to tell me the rest of the story?”
Virgil looked at the clock on the wall. “We have to find out how Pam Donatti’s murder ties in with the Esser killings because if we don’t I’m afraid that I’m going to lose the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
Virgil looked at the clock again. “Pam Donatti had filed a lawsuit against Murton, Rosie. She
alleges that Murton was directly responsible for Ed’s death.”
“I know. I read the paper. I also know it’s bullshit. Everyone knows he was trying to save him.”
“It is bullshit, and it probably would have all gone away eventually, or at worst settled by the insurance carriers. But then Pam turned up dead. Internal Affairs is having a field day with this. Gordon is leaning on them hard and they’re ready to hang Murton from a meat hook. The only thing stopping them is the evidence that Pam killed Martha Esser.”
Rosencrantz thought it over. “So you’re stuck. If you follow the physical evidence it smears the wife of a former member of this unit, and if you don’t, Murt is hung out to dry.”
“That about says it.”
“There is no way that Murton murdered Pam Donatti.”
Virgil rubbed his face with both hands. Tired. “I know that, Tom, but try telling it to IA. The gun records came through from the ATF. If something doesn’t break, they’re going to bring him in and once that process starts, he’ll have a hell of a time getting out from under it.”
Becky walked into Virgil’s office. Her face was waxy, her eyes tired and red. She sat down next to Rosencrantz, put her face in her hands and choked back a sob. When she raised her head the look on her face was like someone who didn’t exactly know where they were. “Cora told me to get over here. I don’t know what’s happening, but I really don’t have time for it right now. If you want to know the truth, the only reason I’m here is I had to get out of the house. I couldn’t take it anymore. They’re tearing the place to pieces. These are our people, Virgil. They’re treating my home like their own personal stomping ground.”
“It’s okay, Becks. Everything is going to be all right.”
Becky stared at him with an intensity he’d not seen from her before. “It better be.” Then after a few seconds she softened and said, “I think I’ve got something, but I don’t know if it matters.”
“What?”
“Before he got pulled, Murt asked the hospital for a list of all the people who’d been in to visit Martha Esser. Unfortunately they don’t keep a list or a sign-in sheet or anything, so I had to do it the hard way.”