Authors: Lorne L. Bentley
Based on the new evidence, Fred put a 24 hour police watch on Donna Lang, and told her under no conditions was she to go to work for at least a couple of days. He wanted the results of the FBI fingerprint comparison completed before he would consider allowing her to return to her normal routine.
Shortly thereafter, Fred received a call from Brian Miller.
“Fred, I have some good news for you. I completed the fingerprint check. I started doing the comparison from the list you gave me with those you considered the most suspicious at the top of my list. We had a hit already.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“You better believe it. The print match was exact. As you know, fingerprint experts need at least an eight point match to be used as credible evidence in a trial. In this case it was no less than sixteen points.”
“Who is the person?”
“We linked it to a Debra Black!”
Fred could not believe the good luck he was having. He called Donna at her home.
“Donna, this is Lieutenant Harris. Now please listen very carefully. Have you ever had anybody from your company over to your house in the last few days?”
“What do you think I am, anti-social?”
“No, Donna, I don’t. Could you just please answer my question?”
“Well, I had someone from my bridge club over; and my sister came over once last week.”
Fred was starting to tear out his few remaining hairs.
“Donna! What about people you work with?”
“No! I am not anti-social but I really don’t get along with many of them. Now, Elton is OK, but Josh—”
“—Thanks!” Fred hung up. He had his evidence. He still could not link the suspect to the mass murders; but he could make a definite match to the attempted murder of the AU secretary.
With the evidence he held, he requested a search warrant to investigate the contents of Miss Black’s home. With any luck, he felt he could find a weapon that might have been used in Donna’s attempted murder.
He sent Jim over to AU to pick up Miss Black for questioning.
While Jim was gone, Fred went in to brief the chief. In various meetings with him, it had become obvious that the chief was convinced that one did not have to look any further for those responsible for the mass murders than in the jail cells where the two suspects were being held. Fred was only successful in extending his investigation based on the district attorney’s desire to have him look deeper into it. Fortunately, the chief was a big picture person and allowed a great degree of freedom of action from his subordinates as long as he believed they were following his general directions.
Now Fred was faced with the reality of having to tell the chief that he really believed the two suspects they had in custody were not really the brains behind the crimes. It had been extremely difficult to convince him that the entire purpose of the shooting sprees was just to kill two men. Now, to go to the next step to indicate that the murders had little or no responsibility in the killings, would be too much to ask from an unsympathetic superior. On the other hand, he could simply limit his discussion to the attempt on Donna’s life and buy more time in the process. He decided on the latter course, knowing that a confrontation would have to occur at some time in the near future. Until then, the more evidence he could gather in the interim, the more fortified his position would be.
Shit! He was really beginning to hate this job more and more with all of its political overtones; it had been so much better being a cop on the beat with someone else dealing with the never ending vagaries of the political system.
The chief listened intently to Fred’s explanation of the attempted murder of Schultz’s secretary. His only comment was, “Good job, Fred, keep me informed.”
* * *
A judge signed the search warrant for Debra Black’s home. Things finally seemed to be going in the right direction.
Jim entered the station with Black handcuffed and protesting violently. He notified Fred of her presence. “Fred, this wildcat gave me a hard time and asked that she make one phone call before I took her in. I let her do that and she calmed down immediately.”
“Okay, Jim, take her to the interrogation room.”
Fred asked the chief if he wanted to be present during the interrogation. The chief smiled and said, “No, this is your case, you handle it!”
Fred carefully laid out to Miss Black the facts of the attempted murder of Donna and the undeniable presence of her own fingerprints on the range knob where the gas had been turned on. He asked if she had any explanation of how it could have been there—any explanation at all?
The interrogation continued for the next fifteen minutes, with Miss Black vehemently insisting she had never been anywhere near Donna’s place, that she didn’t even know where Donna lived.
There was a knock on the door and Patrolman Charles entered asking to speak to Fred outside the room. Patrolman Charles was one of the policemen who had searched Miss Black’s house.
Fred asked, “What’s up?”
“Well, we found something you might be interested in, Lieutenant.” In his hand was a .32 caliber automatic wrapped in plastic.
“We found this hidden beneath the floor boards of her house. We were lucky, one of the screws in the floor boards had not been totally screwed in, we spotted it and when we pulled up the floor board, there it was.”
Fred was ecstatic. “Have this weapon fired in the lab and make sure a ballistics test is conducted on the barrel’s signature. Compare it to the shell casing that we found in the AU parking lot.”
Fred re-entered the interrogation room. “Miss Black, we found a .32 caliber automatic hidden under the floor boards in your house. We are at this very moment comparing that gun to a shell casing that we found at the AU parking lot. As you well know, an attempt was made on Miss Lang’s life in that same parking lot. If we have a match, then you can be assured that you will have an attempted murder charge against you. Now, would you like to say something?”
At that moment the chief entered the interrogation room accompanied by two tall men wearing dark blue pin stripe suits. If one was not a few inches taller than the other, they might have been twins.
The chief was laconic, “Fred, could I see you in the hall for a moment?”
“But, Chief, I’m questioning a suspect; and I think you’ll be interested in hearing what we have just found out about her.”
It was as if the chief hadn’t heard a word that Fred said. “I said, please come out in the hall with me—now!”
Fred wasn’t sure what to make of the chief’s attitude. He suspected the two men were Black’s lawyers, although he had never seen either of them before.
“Okay, Chief, he said testily, “what is it?”
“Miss Black is to be released immediately. These two gentlemen will escort her out of the station.”
Fred was astounded. “But you don’t know all the background, what we found at her home and the overwhelming evidence!”
“Fred, I don’t really care. She’s free to go. It’s as simple as that, don’t argue.”
At that moment Fred lost it. He didn’t have great respect for the chief to begin with, and now the chief was taking control of his case without knowing the circumstances, and he was releasing a person who was most likely a murderer!
For the first time in their formal relationship, Fred used the chief’s first name.
“Dan, go ahead and release her and go fuck yourself at the same time! I’ve had it!”
Fred removed his badge and threw it forcefully on the hard tile floor. He promptly left the office, slamming the door loudly behind him.
Chapter 66
Outside the station Fred jumped into his rental car and, disregarding city speed limits, he sped directly home.
As he burst through the front door, Maureen immediately knew that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter, honey, bad day?”
“I just quit my job, is that bad enough?”
Fred headed directly to the refrigerator, simultaneously removing three bottles of his favorite dark beer.
He returned to the living room, silently sat across from Maureen, and gulped down the first of his three beers without taking a breath.
“Honey, I’ve never seen you so mad. What happened?”
On one hand Fred did not want to talk about it. On the other he needed some form of release; and Maureen was always exceptional in providing a sounding board for him.
He told her everything that had happened, starting from the attack on Schultz’s secretary’s life to the point in which his chief had defied logic and released the person responsible for the attempted murder.
Fred said, “I just can’t deal with this any longer! Hell, I’ve been investigating night and day to find the real person behind the murders, without notifying the chief of all that I have been doing. Because I knew he would have stopped me in my tracks. When I finally get a suspect with a massive amount of evidence linking her to at least one crime, they take it out of my hands. Screw them! Screw them all!”
Maureen started to get up when the doorbell rang.
“Don’t answer it, Maureen! I don’t want to talk to anybody now.”
“Not even the Fuller Brush man or the Avon lady?” Her attempt to lighten the situation went nowhere. There was not even the hint of a smile on Fred’s face, he just kept fuming. He was already halfway through his second beer.
The doorbell continued to ring.
Finally, amid all of Fred’s frustration he could no longer listen to the irritating sound. He jerked the door open, yelling, “What the hell do you want?”
Standing on the other side of the door was the chief.
“Well, Fred, are you going to let me in or not?”
Fred’s resentment against the chief had not abated. “Why should I, I don’t work for you anymore!”
The chief said, “Well, we’ll see about that,” as he pushed his way past Fred. “Fred, I have to talk to you. I know you’re pissed, but listen to me and after you hear my story. Then, if you still want to be a total fool and resign I won’t stand in your way.”
He looked at the beer sitting next to Fred’s sofa. “That beer looks good. I think I’ll have one.”
Fred started to say, I will tell you what you can do with my beer, but the words never got out.
Maureen delicately intervened and said, “Of course, Chief, I will get you one. Please, please sit down and make yourself comfortable.”
The chief sat down and said, “Fred, sit down!”
Damn, Fred thought, now he’s ordering me around in my own house. Fred sat down.
“Fred, I know you are irritated that I let your suspect go but I had no choice.”
“What do you mean, no choice? Why the hell did you let her go?”
“Fred, I didn’t do it!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, what I am about to tell you is confidential. I have no authority to communicate it to you. Do you understand?”
Maureen entered the room with the amber beer foaming over the brim. With all of her massive intelligence, Fred thought, she never did learn how to pour beer.
The chief said, “What I have to say is confidential, Maureen. I have no control what Fred says to you after I leave your house; but I would appreciate it if you’d leave us alone for a few minutes.”
Maureen started to leave the room, but Fred stopped her. “No,” he said, “she’s my wife and she stays.”
The chief ignored Fred’s request and repeated his order. “Maureen, please leave the room.”
Maureen complied, causing Fred’s barely controlled anger to reignite.
The chief ignored Fred’s unconfined emotion. “Okay, I told you I didn’t order your suspect’s release. Now aren’t you a little bit curious as to who did?”
“Do whatever you want! What the hell do I care?”
“I know you too well to believe that. The person was the DA.”
Fred’s curiosity overcame his anger. He asked, “Why would the DA get involved at this stage? We haven’t even briefed him about this. You mean he just reacted out of the blue to the story those two defense lawyers gave him without checking first with us for corroboration?”
“They were not lawyers, Fred.”
Now Fred was confused, and his confusion transcended his anger. “Who were they then?”
“They were from the CIA.”
“I could get into big trouble if anyone knew I was telling you this; but you’re a good man and I don’t want to lose you. It’s worth the risk to try to retain you. Look, Miss Black works directly for the CIA; she’s a plant at AU. She has been put there because there is concern that secrets from their research have been getting into enemy hands. They don’t think it’s accidental, they believe someone in that company is a spy for a foreign government. The CIA was concerned that if she was officially arrested, the details of the investigation she was involved in could become public.
The chief continued, “The DA was contacted directly by Washington and he was provided with all the details. He, of course, could not afford to ignore directions from the top cops in the nation. He called me just after you had taken her to the interrogation room. I told him I would not release her. He said I would have to. He then said the DA’s office would never prosecute the case, regardless of what I did. I couldn’t tell you the details in the presence of the two CIA officials, since I was sworn to secrecy. So that’s the story. Fred, I had to release her, I had no choice!”