I left the captain and David talking at the picnic table and settled in the living room, glad for the downtime to work on the Cox case. To get started I called Torres, the department’s computer guru. He’d left a message asking me to call him about Cox’s computer. The darn thing had spooked me enough that I put everything else on hold to find out what he wanted.
First thing out of Torres’s mouth was, “This damn computer’s jumpier than a jackrabbit eyeing a rattlesnake.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It keeps turning itself on,” he said. “We found a short in the plug, which is odd since it’s pretty new, but it’s there. Fixed it, and it hasn’t happened since.”
“That’s interesting,” I said, thinking back to my experience in Cox’s office. “When it happened, turned itself on, I mean, what comes up on the screen?”
“The opening screen,” Torres said. Then, to my relief he added, “And about half the time, it automatically fills in that woman’s password and pulls up something from memory, different every time. A couple hours ago we had her 401(k) holdings, and earlier this afternoon it flashed a photo of the victim with her sister.”
“Imagine that,” I said. Could it have been a coincidence that when I was in the office it pulled up a photo of the oil field? Is it possible that a simple twist of fate delivered what could be an important piece of evidence? “You’re telling me that there’s no rhyme or reason to what pops up?”
“Not that we can tell,” he said. “We’ve been over and over this computer, tore it all apart, I promise. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Okay,” I said. From fans and TVs that turned themselves on to a computer with a mind of its own, I knew Faith would argue there were too many coincidences to be just that. For me, though, faulty wiring was at least a plausible explanation. “Thanks, Torres,” I said. “Good work.”
As soon as I got off the phone, I turned my attention to more concrete matters, ones that didn’t make the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. Along with dinner, the captain had brought the first batch of financial records I’d subpoenaed for Grant Roberts, Wagner, and Dickson. Janet had been busy. So far, all she’d collected on the two oilmen were credit card bills, but I’d only been at it for a couple of hours when I thought I found something interesting.
“Captain,” I said, breaking into a conversation on the pros and cons of fishing with lures versus live bait. “If you can stay here to cover for us, I’d like David to come with me to talk to a possible suspect on the Cox case.”
“Sure, Sarah,” he said. “No problem.”
Right then my new cell phone rang. “Mom, it’s Maggie,” my daughter said, as if I wouldn’t have recognized her voice.
“Hi, Magpie. All’s well here. Warrior and Emma Lou are both doing just fine,” I said. “We got the colt on that new vitamin supplement Doc ordered.”
“That’s good. Tell Warrior I miss him, okay?” she said.
“You’ve got it,” I said.
“Mom, I think I’ve got it figured out. You know that photo you sent me?”
“What did you see?”
“Well, the thing is, the sky changes depending on the time of year,” she explained, very seriously. My daughter talked about someday being a teacher, and I had the distinct impression she was practicing her lecture skills on me. “Different constellations come into view while others drop away as the earth tilts on its axis.”
“Okay, I understand that,” I said. “So what did you see in the photo?”
“Well, it’s not the best picture,” she said. “It’s not all that clear, but . . .”
T
he Big Dipper, it would turn out, was the key. In the winter, this easily recognized constellation hangs low in the East Texas sky. In the photograph, Maggie had no trouble spotting the Dipper, high in the heavens. “It can’t be winter,” she said. “This photo was taken in the summer.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, sounding excited by the challenge. “Is that all you need? Do you want me to do more investigating?”
“That’s exactly what I need, Magpie,” I said. “I love you. All’s well here! Tell Gram I love her, too!”
“I love you, too, Mom,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night, Magpie,” I said. “And thank you, again. Great work.”
“Nice getup, Mr. Wagner,” I said to the old man seated across from David and me. We were in his parlor where I’d been two days earlier, but this time it was after dark and he wore a flannel bathrobe
over thermal pajamas and a knit cap covered his head. “Drafty in this big old place? You should consider downsizing.”
“It’s easier to catch a cold when you’re my age,” he said. “Another thing that’s easier is speaking your mind. I thought we’d disposed of all this. Why are you back?”
“Agent Garrity and I are following up on the interview I had with you on Billie Cox’s homicide,” I said. “Some of your answers, it appears, weren’t truthful. Like when that photo of you at the Stanhope Field was taken.”
The old guy assessed me out of the corners of his rheumy eyes and puckered his wrinkled mouth. He would have been a natural for the part of Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol.
I wondered where the ghost of Christmas past was hiding. David and I could have passed for the ghosts of Christmas present, since we’d arrived with a large shopping bag, bulging with items wrapped in brown paper. Wagner kept staring at them. I hoped he noticed they weren’t tied with ribbons and bows.
“That’s not a nice thing to say to an old man, Lieutenant,” he said, surveying my face and then staring yet again at the bag. “Particularly when it’s not true. I happen to know that my old partner, Dickson, told you exactly the same thing I did. You got other information, it’s wrong.”
“Let’s take a look at the photo again,” I suggested. I’d put David in charge of my props. The first thing he pulled out was an envelope. He handed it to me, and I slipped out a copy of the photo in question.
“To start, I’m going to tell you how I know you lied, Mr. Wagner. First, I talked to your attorney, Jimmy McBride, the third man in this photo,” I said, pointing to the younger man in the picture, the one with his back to the camera. “And what he told me is that this was taken not eight years ago in December but just this past July,
last summer, when you and Mr. Dickson hired him to represent you on the sale of the oil field.”
“That man’s mistaken,” Wagner said with a snarl. “You know lawyers. They can never keep anything straight.”
Shaking my head as if perplexed, I leaned forward and tried to hand him the photo, but the old man merely sat back in his chair and shot me a look that warned I’d better be careful. “You’ve got my word and my partner’s word against McBride’s, so he’s outnumbered. That ought to be enough for you.”
“Only thing is, look right here,” I said, taking a pen out of my pocket. Since he refused to hold the photo, I gave it to David who held it up at Wagner’s eye-level, as I traced the outline of the seven stars that made up the constellation. “That’s the Big Dipper. Know what’s interesting about that?”
“No, but I’m bound to have the misfortune of having you explain it to me, I suppose,” he said. “You know, Lieutenant, I’ve already lived a long life. I don’t like being manipulated. It wastes my time.”
“This won’t be a waste of time, I give you my word,” I said with a smile. Had to admit, I was enjoying every minute of this conversation, so much more than our first. “What’s interesting is that in winter the Big Dipper is low over this part of Texas. The earth has shifted on its axis, and the Dipper’s close to the horizon. The only time it’s this high is summer, like in July, which just happens to be when Mr. McBride told us the three of you were there. Which proves, as I mentioned, that you lied to me, Mr. Wagner.”
He thought about that a bit, and then smiled. “Well, maybe it was last summer. I’m an old man and I’m forgetful. Maybe I’ve got some of that dementia stuff my friends are all coming down with. Can’t see any other explanation. Why would I lie about something like that?” he asked, with an exaggerated scowl. “Seems pretty silly.”
“I wondered about that, too,” I said. “Then I realized that admitting the photo was just months-old made it too easy to figure out that you were involved in the sale. And since y’all falsified that report and lied about there being oil in the field, you had a reason not to want me to learn the truth.”
“Is telling a lie a jail-able offense? I don’t think so,” he challenged, his wispy white eyebrows knotted together, giving him a disheveled look. “Leave me alone. This is baloney. You’ve got no crime here.”
“Ah, but I do. You know as well as I do that a lie told to bilk folks out of cash is fraud. Bet you also know that the punishment is up to ten years behind bars,” I said, with a self-satisfied grin. “Still, at your age, you probably would have gotten off pretty easy, as little as a year or even probation. Mr. Wagner, you should have let it ride, come clean and settled your losses. It would have been the smarter move, even for an old wildcatter like you.”
With that, Wagner dismissively shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he scoffed. “I haven’t heard any convincing evidence of anything, nothing to be of any concern.”
“Ah, but Mr. Wagner, you should be very concerned,” I said, with a wink. “There’s more.”
David pulled my second prop out of the bag, something rolled up in a brown paper cylinder. On the side, it read:
COX MURDER: EVIDENCE NUMBER 327. BEDROOM RUG
.
“What’s that?” Wagner asked, looking just a speck unsettled.
“That’s the Oriental rug out of Ms. Cox’s bedroom, the one to the left of the bed,” David explained. “I assume you’d like to know what the Lieutenant and I have discovered about this particular item?”
“Spill it,” the old man said. “Then get the hell out of here. It’s late. I’m old and tired, and I’ve had enough. So say what you will, and then leave.”
“What’s interesting about this particular piece of evidence is what’s not on a section of it,” David said. “Billie Cox’s blood.”
Wagner snorted dismissively, as if he saw no importance.
“You see, in a suicide, blood spatter exits the wound covering everything around the person in an uninterrupted pattern,” I explained. “But on this rug, which was on the floor directly next to the body, on the side of the entrance wound, there’s blood on the sides but not the center. Why? Because someone else was in the room when the shot was fired, and instead of hitting the rug, that section of blood spatter landed on the murderer.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Wagner challenged.
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “What’s important for you to understand is that the murderer got blood on his clothes, and if we find the clothes, especially the shoes, which very few killers remember to throw out, a speck or two of blood will undoubtedly still be on them. The guys in our lab are really good at this.”
“What’s that?” Wagner said with a scowl. “Screwing up?”
“Not usually,” I said. “Usually they don’t have much trouble pulling out DNA. We already have Billie’s processed and ready to compare. Once we find a match, we just have to trace the clothes to their owner and we’ve found her murderer.”
“You think that scares me? You have my permission. Search this damn house. Search to your heart’s content,” the old man said with a smile. “Take every piece of clothing I own to those Neanderthals who staff that lab you’re so proud of. I promise that you won’t find Billie’s blood. Not even a speck. I didn’t kill that woman.”
“Oh, but you misunderstand, Mr. Wagner. I don’t think you pulled the trigger,” I said. “But before we get to my theory about the role you played, I’ve got just a few more things to show you.”
“This is starting to feel like show-and-tell in kindergarten,” he said, with a tight laugh. “Have at it, Lieutenant. This isn’t getting you anywhere. As far as I’m concerned, Billie committed suicide. If
you can prove she didn’t, you should be chasing the SOB who murdered her, not bothering an old man at bedtime.”
“Ah, but we are chasing the SOB,” I said. Then I whispered, “Mr. Wagner, that’s why we’re here.”
“You said you didn’t think I pulled the trigger,” he said, his anger rising.
“That’s right. I don’t. I’m sorry if you find this confusing,” I said. “It’ll all make sense soon. I promise.”
David pulled out our next prop, a chart I’d made with copies of receipts attached. One had Ty Dickson’s name and MasterCard number on it, payment for lunch at the El Camarero Mexican restaurant, not far from Century Oil’s offices. The receipt was dated the afternoon after Cox’s murder, and the waiter noted that three people dined.
Wagner looked it over, then I handed him the next credit card receipt, this one for parking at the same building for the same day, the same time, on Grant Roberts’s Visa.
“So who’s this Roberts guy?” Wagner asked.
“You know who he is,” I said. “It’s Billie’s brother-in-law, the one she was having an affair with. The one who was furious at her for breaking it off. He’d been counting on her money to make him rich. Too bad for him, she had second thoughts. Maybe she hated to hurt her sister. Or maybe Billie figured out that Roberts is pond scum.”
“Oh, is that the man she was bedding? How embarrassing,” Wagner said, with a forced laugh. “Bet her sister’s not going to be delighted to hear that. But I’m confused. What in the world does any of this have to do with me?”
“Look at the final sheet of paper,” I suggested.
He did. It was a computer printout I’d called the Harris County Toll Road Authority to get on a hunch, after I’d zeroed in on the two credit card receipts. The record they faxed proved that on that same afternoon, while Billie’s body was in the process of being au
topsied at the morgue, Wagner’s toll tag, the one on the black Cadillac sedan parked in his garage, left the Sam Houston Tollway at the exit closest to the restaurant in question just five minutes before Roberts parked his car and an hour before Dickson paid for the three Mexican lunches.
“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Wagner said.
“No. I only brought all of this along for fun, because I truly enjoy showing others how we piece evidence together. This is the only item I needed,” I said. Out of my purse I pulled a DVD. A Post-it note on the top of the see-through plastic case read: cox
MURDER, SURVEILLANCE TAPE: EL CAMARERO RESTAURANT
.