Animal Instinct

by Rosenfelt, David

  “That is interesting,” Andy says. “Based on their jobs, these were computer people. They were close enough to talk all those times, but never email? Maybe they were afraid of security, of someone reading what they wrote.”

  “Right,” Sam says. “Like I said, it could be nothing, but it struck me as strange.”

  I don’t think any of us are tremendously confident that this is any kind of a breakthrough, but Laurie says, “Give me her number; I’ll call her. Let’s see what happens.”

  “She’s probably at work now,” I say.

  “It’s her cell number,” Sam says. “Maybe she’ll answer at work.”

  Sam gives Laurie the number and she dials it. Sam, Andy, and I can only hear Laurie’s side of the conversation.

  “Hello, is this Jana Mitchell?” There’s a pause. “Hi, Jana, my name is Laurie Collins; I’m a private investigator in Paterson, New Jersey. I’m calling because I’d like to talk to you about Lisa Yates.”

  Another pause.

  “You don’t know her? I’m talking about the Lisa Yates who worked at Ardmore Medical Systems.”

  Another brief pause.

  “Ms. Mitchell, is something wrong? We know that you and Lisa were…”

  A final pause.

  “Ms. Mitchell, I’m going to be out there tomorrow and I would really appreciate your talking to me. I think you know something that could be helpful to us in apprehending—”

  Laurie hangs up the phone; Jana Mitchell apparently hung up on her first. Laurie turns to us. “I’m going to Cincinnati.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Unless I am a terrible judge of people, Jana Mitchell was afraid, actually near panic. She was fine until I mentioned Lisa Yates, and then I could hear it in her voice. She also denied knowing Lisa, which is an obvious lie.”

  I totally trust Laurie’s instinct in matters like this, but I’m frustrated that I can’t go with her. Cincinnati is obviously outside the range that the terms of my bail allow me to travel.

  “I’ll go with you,” Andy says.

  She shakes her head. “You have to prepare for trial, and we also have a child, remember? A small person named Ricky? He has to eat. Hopefully he’ll prepare meals for you as well.”

  “Ricky’s a terrible cook,” Andy says.

  “So get pizza.”

  Andy brightens. “Now you’re talking.”

  “Take Marcus with you,” I say.

  “Guys, are we now into protecting the helpless woman? I can handle myself, and I doubt that Jana Mitchell in Cincinnati is going to pose much of a danger.”

  I shake my head. “If she was really afraid, it means there is some danger involved.”

  Laurie ignores that and turns to Sam. “Can you get me her home address? I’ll go see her after she’s done with work.”

  “Duh,” Sam says, meaning of course he can get her address. “I can also access her phone GPS and tell you where she is if she’s not at home.”

  “Perfect,” Laurie says. “I’ll just book the flight and then it’s off to Cincinnati.”

  “Go first-class,” I say. “This defense team spares no expense.”

  LAURIE got a three o’clock flight out of LaGuardia.

  It was a short flight, but she didn’t need time to think about what her approach would be to Jana Mitchell. She had already decided that she would appeal to her on the basis of friendship. If Jana cared about Lisa Yates, then it was up to her to help find her killer.

  There was always the possibility that Laurie was wrong, that Jana got scared simply because an investigator was asking her about a murder. The average person has no involvement in such things, and Jana could have just panicked, or at least flinched, in the moment.

  But Laurie didn’t think so. That Jana had denied even knowing Lisa was a tip-off. Laurie’s instincts as a cop, and her instincts as a human being, told her differently. Jana’s reaction was not normal. It was as if she had been fearing such a call, and her nightmare had come true.

  Laurie didn’t relish causing anyone a nightmare, and she was sorry she did something to trigger that fear. But it was part of her job, and that job was to help Corey. He wasn’t going to prison for a crime he did not commit because Jana Mitchell was afraid. She would have to deal with it because Laurie was not going to let her off the hook—no matter what.

  Laurie had some time to kill after landing and renting a car, so she grabbed a bite to eat. She did so in Clifton, the Cincinnati neighborhood where Jana Mitchell lived. There were nice restaurants and cafés there, and the weather was surprisingly cool and comfortable. She ate outside and it was extremely pleasant, and Laurie regretted not letting Andy join her. Then she realized that Andy would probably bemoan the lack of televisions showing sports, so she got over her regrets.

  At eight thirty, she texted Sam Willis to ask where Jana’s phone was.

  “At her house,” Sam said. “It’s been there for almost three hours.”

  Jana’s house was only eight blocks away, so Laurie decided to leave her car near the restaurant and walk there. That way she could quickly go over in her mind how she would approach Jana, and how she would deal with the woman’s fear and probable unwillingness to cooperate.

  When she was a block and a half away, she saw the flashing lights. As she got closer, her instincts once again kicked in, and somehow she knew that whatever was happening, it was at Jana Mitchell’s house.

  And it wasn’t going to be good.

  When Laurie got closer, police barricades kept the public away. Laurie did not know any of the Cincinnati cops, so all she could do was stand there with the neighbors and other onlookers. Rumors were abounding, but one thing was certain: it was Jana Mitchell’s house.

  The prevailing view, at least among the neighbors, was that Jana was murdered. When Laurie saw the coroner’s van, she had no doubt that it was true.

  Laurie went to her hotel and turned on the local news. It was one of the lead stories. During a home invasion, a woman was killed in the robbery. They were not giving out a name, pending notification of next of kin, but reporters on the scene were talking with Jana Mitchell’s house as a backdrop.

  Laurie called Andy and told him what had happened. She asked him to call Corey and convey the news. She ended the call quickly; she did not feel like talking. She wanted to feel and deal with the full weight of what she had done.

  This all started because Corey felt guilty about Lisa Yates; he felt that since he hadn’t helped her enough the night of the domestic violence call, it led to her eventual murder. It had a certain logic to it, but Laurie had never felt his guilt was justified, even though he felt it sincerely. Nothing he could have done could have saved her all that time later.

  But this situation was different. Anyone could draw a straight line from Laurie’s call to Jana to her death. The fear Laurie detected was real, and it was proven to be thoroughly and horribly justified. Laurie was going to have to live with this for a long time.

  Jana Mitchell was alive and well before Laurie entered her life. Twenty-four hours later she was the victim of a brutal murder.

  But how did her killers find out about Laurie? Had Jana told them, whether intentionally or inadvertently? Why would she do that? On the surface it didn’t make sense; if Jana was so guarded that she wouldn’t talk to Laurie, why would she open up to someone else? Was it someone she trusted, but clearly should not have?

  Had someone known that Laurie was traveling to Cincinnati to talk to Jana? How could they know that? Was Laurie being followed? Laurie doubted this theory; it seemed far more likely that the leak, if there was one, was from Jana’s side.

  The bottom line was that Jana must have known something crucial to solving the Lisa Yates murder, and crucial to helping Corey’s case.

  Whatever she knew died with her.

  CARLOS called Musgrove on his way back to New Jersey.

  He had flown to Cincinnati that morning; it was necessary to fly in so as to get his work done b
efore the woman arrived. Obviously he had used a fake identification; he had plenty of those.

  He was going to drive home, so as to make his steps harder to trace. It wasn’t his idea; he considered it unnecessary and overly cautious. But he did as he was told. Those instructions included using a different fake ID when he rented a car and when he stopped for the night at a hotel, midway in the ten-hour drive that night.

  “Everything went as planned, boss,” Carlos said.

  “I’ve seen the news coverage. I trust you made no mistakes?”

  “No. I made it look like a home-invasion robbery, as we discussed.”

  “That may fool the police. It will not fool our adversaries.”

  Carlos waited for his boss to continue. He might hang up, or he might give Carlos further instructions. Carlos had reported in, so basically had nothing else to say. The boss was not much for chitchatting.

  Musgrove was trying to deal with the implications of what he had just said to Carlos. The home invasion would not in fact fool the people that they were up against.

  Carlos had made the original mistake of framing the ex-cop, Douglas, and they were still paying the price for it. Had Carlos not done that, Douglas and the others would have backed off by now. But because Douglas was facing murder charges, they would never back off.

  Musgrove and his team had considered killing Douglas. If they did so, obviously his colleagues would no longer need to prove him innocent; the legal system would have no reason to go after a dead man.

  There was always the chance that those colleagues, the lawyer and his coinvestigators, would continue the hunt, trying to avenge Douglas’s death. But Musgrove felt they would likely do so with less energy and tenaciousness. If he was wrong about that, then they would pay the price as well.

  Eliminating Douglas might well cause the police to reopen their investigation into Gerald Kline’s murder, although they could take the easy way out and believe that the real killer, Douglas, was now dead. Either way, they had nothing to go on, and they would soon drop it and move on to other things.

  Case closed.

  It was a big decision, but Musgrove was ultimately a logical person, and the correct strategy was fairly clear. He would discuss it with his team, but knew that they would agree. They were even more ruthless than he was.

  “Kill Douglas,” he told Carlos. “But plan it carefully and do not fail.”

  “I know exactly how Laurie must feel,” I say.

  It’s almost midnight and I’m still trying to come to grips with what happened in Cincinnati. Andy didn’t have much information when he called beyond that Jana Mitchell had been murdered, and that Laurie would be heading home in the morning.

  Dani was at a work event and got home at about eleven. I told her what happened, and we’ve been talking about it for almost an hour. Mostly I’m talking and she’s listening.

  “Telling her that she is not responsible won’t help,” I say. “It didn’t help when they told me I wasn’t responsible for Lisa Yates, and the truth is that there is much more of a cause and effect here. But where she is wrong will be in taking all the blame on herself. We were all a part of it; every step of the way. Laurie was the one who went out to Cincinnati, but if I was allowed, it would have been me. Either way we all agreed on the best approach.”

  “Obviously, it’s a terrible tragedy,” Dani says. “And just as obviously the best thing you can do now is catch the person that did this. Do you think the same person also killed Lisa Yates and Gerald Kline?”

  I shake my head. “No, that was Jake Gardener. He admitted it the night he died. But that doesn’t matter; the same people are behind it.”

  “This is not my area of expertise, but it seems to me that the big question at this point isn’t who did it, it’s why. Once you learn the why, the who will fall into place.”

  “You’re exactly right. You sure you’re not a cop?”

  “Pretty sure. So what does what happened in Cincinnati tell you?”

  “That whoever we are dealing with has a long reach. That it has nothing to do with a drug deal involving Rico or anyone else. We’ll reach out to the Cincinnati cops and try and find a Rico out there, but we’ll come up empty.”

  “But you know for a fact that Lisa was afraid of Rico, and that Kline was involved,” Dani says.

  “That’s true, but that doesn’t mean Rico caused her death. Lisa and Kline could have been involved in a lot of bad stuff. But what happened in Cincinnati also tells me that all of this is likely tied into Lisa Yates’s work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the only consistent thread that runs through this. Lisa and Kline met through the medical services industry. She quit her job around the same time she was starting to worry; that’s when she reserved the motel room. And Jana Mitchell was also involved in that industry.”

  “But you told me that Lisa was not a decision maker, all she did was input data into a computer and then make it available.”

  I nod. “That’s what Richard Mahler and the guy he replaced, Don Crystal, both told me. They were above her, at least in the computer area, so they would know. Her coworker Susan Redick said the same thing as well.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “It’s got to be something she uncovered. Maybe Kline was doing something illegal, but more likely not. He was not an employee of Ardmore; he had nothing to do with them on a daily basis. But she could have confided in Kline; they were lovers. That could be why he had to be eliminated as well.”

  “And Lisa confided the same thing to Jana Mitchell? Why?”

  “I’m just guessing here,” I say. “But they might just have been friends. They were in the same industry; maybe they attended conventions together. Maybe their paths crossed some other way at one point in their careers; for all I know they once worked at the same place. I don’t know any of that yet; but I need to find out in a hurry.”

  “Does any of what has happened help you legally?”

  “Not according to Andy. We can’t connect any of it to the Kline murder, at least not well enough to get it in front of a jury. But I have seen Andy in court; he can be resourceful.”

  “Does he think you can win?”

  “I haven’t asked him yet. I’m afraid of the answer.”

  LAURIE has clearly been affected by the Jana Mitchell murder.

  She acknowledges it at the beginning of our noon meeting. Andy and Sam are also here, but Marcus is not.

  “I’m sure you know how I feel,” Laurie says. “Andy obviously knows because I kept him up on the phone most of the night. Corey knows because he felt the same way about Lisa Yates.” She smiles a sad smile. “Sam, you’re off the hook.”

  She continues, “The only way I can deal with it is for us to catch the people that did it. So that’s where my focus is.”

  I’m impressed by her, and not for the first time. She’s a professional, and that’s how she is handling it.

  “Sam, can you check airline travel records?” I ask.

  “Piece of cake. I can tell you who was on a flight, what class of service, and whether they ordered a kosher meal.”

  “Perfect. I want to know who flew from any of the New York airports to Cincinnati yesterday and flew back either last night or first thing this morning.”

  “I’ll be on that list,” Laurie says.

  “That’s okay; I think we can eliminate you as a suspect. There’s a good chance that whoever killed Jana Mitchell was sent from here; it seems unlikely that these people would have a Cincinnati hit man waiting in the wings for an assignment.”

  “I’m on it,” Sam says. “Anything else?”

  “Not now, but I’m sure there will be.”

  I turn to Andy. “What impact will all this have on our case?”

  “Hard to say. If we can connect the deaths of Lisa Yates and Jana Mitchell to Gerald Kline, that would be helpful. That shouldn’t be hard with Lisa because we have the email she sent to Doris Landry saying that s
he and Kline were worried about Rico. And we can show they had a relationship.

  “But it would be especially helpful to connect Mitchell to Kline, since your GPS bracelet represents an ironclad alibi. Right now the difficulty will be in getting this in front of the jury; at this point we can’t pass the threshold to get it admissible. I’m going to subpoena the phone records for both women; that will at least show that they had a relationship. But more of a connection would be helpful.”

  “Maybe I can help with that,” I say. “It’s a shot in the dark, but you never know.”

  I place a call to Stephanie Downes, Kline’s partner, at least in name, in their business. I’m expecting to have to leave a message, but she answers the phone herself.

  “Stephanie, this is Corey Douglas.”

  “Hey, Corey,” she says, as if we’re buddies and talk all the time.

  “I didn’t expect you to answer your phone.”

  “Why? Where did you think you were calling? Buckingham Palace? We’re now a two-person firm and the other person went out for coffee. What’s up?”

  “I want to know if Gerald Kline was instrumental in hiring a woman named Jana Mitchell to work at Midwest Medical Networks in Cincinnati.”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Would you have records that would have a clue?”

  “Possibly, but it will take some time. Did I mention we are a two-person firm?”

  “I believe you did. The faster you could—”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Jana Mitchell was murdered last night.”

  “Whoa … let me put you on hold. I’ll be back.”

  Her phone system has music playing when the caller is on hold, as most of the systems do. This system has two major positives: For one, it plays music by U2. For another, it doesn’t keep interrupting to tell me how important my call is to them.

  In this case, I listen to U2 for almost ten minutes; I think Stephanie must have forgotten me, deliberately or not. I’m about to hang up when she comes back on the line.

  “Got it. Jana Mitchell attended a seminar at the Cincinnati Hilton two years ago. Gerald wound up interviewing her and recommending her to Midwest. They obviously hired her, though our records don’t show that. So your apparent instinct is correct.”