Fair and just, p.14
Fair and Just, page 14
“Tarot card,” said Justice. “It’s okay. You can say it. It won’t summon the bogeyman himself. So you walked through here from the Williams Street entrance last night at eleven?”
“I got off work at eleven. I probably walked through at eleven fifteen.” I glanced into the forest past the edge of the plaza. “Detective, what happened out there?”
Justice shook his head. “Couple of teens found a woman near the creek at about seven-thirty. First responders arrived at quarter till, and Detective Dean and I arrived at half-past eight. As to the woman?” Justice grimaced. “Trust me, you’d rather I didn’t go into detail. I’ve seen some ugly things in my time in homicide, and that one ranks up there. Suffice it to say she had a tarot card sewn in between the layers of her dress. The rest is up in the air. But frankly, what I can tell you about that poor woman is a lot less important that what you might be able to tell me. I haven’t gotten a time of death from the coroner, but you might be the closest thing to a witness we have, Phair.”
Left unsaid was the fact that neither of the first two tarot card murders had any witnesses either, leaving me as perhaps the first person with any first-hand knowledge of the serial killer’s slayings, as minimal as it might be.
I swallowed hard. “I was walking along the path, maybe a couple hundred feet from where it spits into the plaza. I heard a snap, not like a tree branch, but something more brittle. Maybe a… bone?”
Justice grimaced and nodded.
“It seemed to come from my right, so to the west I guess. I stopped and looked into the woods, but they were dark. Nonetheless, I thought I saw a faint, swirling glow, purple in color. More of a smoky haze than anything else.”
Ogden’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you think it was?”
“I don’t know. My first thought was a firework, but the sound didn’t fit, and I didn’t see sparks. It wasn’t quite like anything I’d ever seen. I almost thought I was imagining it.”
Justice dug a notepad out of his jacket. He flipped it open and took a few notes. “What did you do then?”
“I froze,” I said. “Something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I got goosebumps on my arm. For a second I considered booking it out of there as fast as I could, but then I heard another, smaller crunch. A squirrel darted across the path at my feet. I tracked it to the other side of the forest where it disappeared into the darkness. When I turned back, the purple light was gone.”
Blackbeard returned with a waxed paper cup filled with steaming coffee. I didn’t particularly want it, but Justice insisted the man get it, so I took it and gave him my thanks.
Meanwhile, Justice frowned and tapped his notepad with the tip of his pencil. “This squirrel. What did it look like?”
I blinked. “I don’t know. It was smallish. A black squirrel, not one of the more common gray ones. Why? Is the squirrel important?”
Justice shook his head. “I don’t know, but we found a dead black squirrel not far from the scene. I’m no expert in squirrel necropsy, but the thing looked fresh. No flies, eyes weren’t clouded. It couldn’t have been dead for more than a day.”
“You think the killer…?”
Justice shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. We’ve got a ton of work to do, and very little about this murder makes sense at the moment.” He flipped his notepad closed and returned it to his pocket. “The one thing I can say for certain is that Dean is going to want to have a detailed conversation with you.”
“I don’t know that I have much else to tell, but I can repeat to him what I saw. Is he at the crime scene?” Justice had said I didn’t want to see the deceased, and I believed him.
“Nope.” Ogden stood. “Another matter drew him away. He should be at the precinct. Fifth Street. You should head there ASAP—although you can get that breakfast you mentioned first if you’d like. I know better than to stand between a woman and her food.”
The quip made me want to smile, but the panic and fear that descended on me upon learning what happened the night before hadn’t quite lifted. Instead, I stared into my coffee. “You’re smarter than most then, Detective, but I think I’ll pass. As it turns out, I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
At the request of Detective Justice, Officer Blackbeard gave me a ride in his squad car to the 5th Street precinct. He didn’t say much as he drove, which I appreciated. As rattled as I was about the Tarot Card Killer, I didn’t want any of the officers to pity me or treat me with kids gloves just because I’d had the misfortune of being in the vicinity of a violent murder. I was a cop, same as the rest of them, and I wanted to be treated like one. Although Blackbeard initially thumbed his nose at me, he’d changed his tune as soon as it registered that I was an officer of the law. Even though I wasn’t wearing a uniform, he’d accepted me as soon as he’d received Justice’s tacit approval.
If only Razi could be so easily won over.
Blackbeard pulled into the parking garage that butted against the building and pulled into one of the open spots next to the side entrance, the ones reserved for short term visitors. A shiny blue Howardson Dervish parked in the spot nearest the entrance, complete with whitewall tires, chromed bumpers, and a gleaming hood ornament displaying a fierce shield maiden, Howardson’s signature mascot. The license plate on the trunk read “MRLEAD.”
I thanked Blackbeard and hopped out of the squad car, eyeing the decked-out Dervish as I crossed into the station. Though I’d gotten to explore the first floor when I’d accompanied Moss and Roncalli the day before, I wasn’t an expert on which specific corners each detective called home, so I stopped by the front desk and hailed the officer seated there.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for Detective Alton Dean.”
The guy eyed my woven shirt and jeans. “And you are?”
“Officer Penelope Phair. I’m off duty.”
He nodded toward the elevators. “Third floor. By the north-facing windows.”
I took the stairs instead, figuring the exercise would do me good. Once I got to the third floor, I realized I had no idea which direction was north, so I skirted the dividers that separated the floor into cubicles, peering over the tops looking for placards any time I found myself across from any windows. As I made it halfway around the perimeter, I caught sight of Moss’s name between two of the dividing walls. Figuring Dean’s desk wouldn’t be far off, I dove into the maze looking for signs of Dean.
I didn’t find him, but I did find his desk. Like the man himself, it was neat and tidy, with most of the paperwork contained in a pair of wire organizers or constrained to the edges, tightly stacked and marked with strips of colored paper that stuck from between the pages. Dean’s nameplate sat in the middle of the desk, and there was a framed detective’s certification affixed to the partition. Of personal effects, there were only two: an old hourglass, fashioned of blown glass, hand-carved wood, and tied together with fine strands of rope, and a statuette of the same eagle that was embossed on the official police seal, one holding a pair of balance scales in its claws. Notably absent were photos of family members or girlfriends.
One thing stood out from the rest, that being the items dumped in the center of the desk. A manilla folder marked coroner’s report had been slapped there haphazardly, Gus Tovar’s name printed on the tab. I pushed it to the side and found another report underneath it, this one from forensics. I didn’t look at either, but I couldn’t help but glance at the item preventing the first folder from laying flat: a metal slug, deformed from impact, but instead of lead it appeared to be made of solid gold.
I heard footsteps, and I shuffled the reports and bullet back into place on Dean’s desk. I looked over the movable partitions only to find a man I’d never met walking through the maze.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for Detective Dean.”
The guy pointed in the direction he’d come from. “I think he’s in interrogation six with that Doherty guy.”
“Doherty?” I said.
The guy shrugged. “I don’t know. Some businessman.”
I thanked him and followed the general direction of his finger into a corridor. None of the rooms were marked, but as I approached a pair of doors on my left, I heard voices. One was big and bombastic, the other more even and relaxed. Dean’s.
I paused in the hallway. There wasn’t a bench to sit upon as there had been outside interrogation one on the main floor. The voices came from behind the door with an inlaid panel of frosted glass, but I suspected I knew what was behind the adjoining door, one that was as plain as a bowl of cooked rice.
The prudent choice would’ve been to return to Dean’s desk and wait there until the man was done with his questions, but there was another option. Not the smart choice, but the more intriguing one. I looked up and down the hall, and finding it empty, I tested the handle to the unmarked door.
It gave, and I stepped into a simply furnished observation room. A table and a couple chairs were pushed against a one-way mirror looking into the interrogation room. Beside the table was a hulking contraption with a bunch of knobs and dials and a pair of spools attached to the top, each of them containing a length of magnetic tape. I hadn’t seen one of the machines before, but I was fairly sure it was an audio recorder, though this one didn’t seem to be turned on.
Detective Dean’s voice drifted through vents set in the wall between the rooms. “So, Mr. Doherty. Tell me about Flora Lumaris.”
Dean sat in a bare metal chair. Across from him, behind a stainless steel table that had seen its fair share of abuse, sat a man of advanced middle years. He had a tuft of white in his otherwise jet-black hair that looked as if it had been dyed into place, but other than that, his age didn’t really show. He was broad-shouldered and clean shaven, with a few wrinkles in his brow and at the corners of his eyes, and he wore a suit that cost him a pretty penny, though not as much as the thick gold ring he wore on his right hand. If the man had been looking for a legal alternative to brass knuckles, he might’ve found one.
Doherty responded, his voice big and brassy. “For the record, Miss Lumaris contacted me, and did so before I ever met Mr. Tovar. At the time she was working at New Welwic University. At first I feared she wanted to express an environmental concern about my facilities, but instead she offered a business opportunity.”
“When was this?” asked Dean.
“Two years ago, give or take. Upon meeting, she outlined her plan to find the Philosopher’s Stone, a substance that can supposedly turn lead to gold. I was skeptical, of course. As a man who’s built his empire on extracting and processing lead ores, I’ve heard every myth there’s ever been about the transmutation of lead, but Miss Lumaris isn’t a historian or even a religious kook. As it turned out, her background was in geology, and she knew as well as I did that lead is often found in the same minerals that silver and gold are. I won’t go into the details of her proposal, but the crux of her claim was that the myth of the Philosopher’s Stone is based in science. That there’s a mineral catalyst, if you will, that when subjected to the right conditions of temperature and pressure can turn lead into the gold and silver that’s found in those same ores. This, she claimed, was the true secret of the Philosopher’s Stone and what she wanted to help me uncover.”
“Help you uncover?” said Dean.
Doherty smiled. “What she really wanted was my money to fund her expedition, as well as rights to the industrial processes derived from the Philosopher’s Stone, but I didn’t earn my millions without learning how to negotiate. I thought her pitch was intriguing, and after a few rounds of proposals and counter proposals, we came to an agreement and off she went.”
Dean nodded. “So when did Tovar enter the picture?”
“I approached him around three months later,” said Doherty. “I kept thinking about Lumaris’s argument, that a mineral could catalyze the transformation of lead. It seemed to me that if it was true, a chemical could be produced to achieve the same result. So I approached Gus, who had a background in inorganic chemistry and post-transition metals, and after some negotiating, I hired him to spearhead a research project to see if the transformation of lead to gold via chemical rather than mineral means was possible.”
Dean leaned back in his chair. “So you were funding an archeological expedition and a fledgling chemical enterprise? That must’ve been expensive.”
Doherty smiled. “Business has treated me well, Detective. I’ve made a lot of safe bets in my life, but I’ve also taken risks. Not all of them paid off, but the ones that did made me rich. Yet every crown I’ve earned would be peanuts next to what I could generate with the ability to turn my lead enterprise into a gold and silver empire. I figured the risk was worth the cost.”
“Except it wasn’t,” said Dean. “Because Gus Tovar is dead.”
Doherty snorted. “Trust me, I’m more upset about this than you are. First Lumaris has her sample of the catalyst material stolen, now Tovar gets murdered. I might as well have flushed a hundred thousand crowns down the toilet. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess someone was trying to ruin me.”
“Or keep whatever secret Lumaris and Tovar were close to uncovering hidden,” offered Dean.
Doherty smiled. “From my perspective, Detective, that sounds like the same thing.”
I could only see the back of Dean’s head, but I imagine he didn’t smile back. “Mr. Doherty, could you tell me what you were doing between the hours of seven and nine PM two nights ago?”
“I was at work. I think I didn’t leave until about seven-thirty. My driver took me home. I’d guess I got there about eight, maybe quarter after.”
“And your driver? He could confirm that?”
“Of course.” Doherty’s brows furrowed. “But you couldn’t possibly think I had anything to do with Tovar’s murder or the theft of the Philosopher's Stone, could you? I’m the one who’s lost his entire investment as a result of these crimes.”
“Possibly,” said Dean, his voice cool and indifferent. “Then again, you’re also the one with the most to gain by taking full control of such a valuable trade secret, and it does strike me as odd that you’re unwilling to go into the details of your contractual agreements with Ms. Lumaris and Mr. Tovar. I’m not much of a businessmen myself, Mr. Doherty, but even I know that a hundred percent of a deal is more than some fraction of that.”
Doherty’s face darkened. “Indeed. Well, Detective, my apologies, but I think I’ve given all the assistance I can with your investigation. Certainly all that I intend to without my lawyer present.”
“No need to call him right away.” Dean pushed back from his chair. “You’re free to go, Mr. Doherty. Thank you for time.”
The lead tycoon didn’t need to be told twice. He stood, gave Dean a disproving glance, and stomped out of the room.
Dean followed him out, closing the door behind him. I turned toward the exit, but before I could move, I saw the handle to the observation room turn. The door opened, and in stepped Detective Dean.
He glared at me as he closed the door. “I thought I heard someone enter the room. What the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
My heart leapt into my throat, and I broke into a cold sweat. I hadn’t planned what to say in the event I got caught snooping, so I panicked and said the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t think he did it.”
Dean blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Mr. Doherty. The lead guy. I saw his car in the parking garage. It’s definitely not the one that fled the crime scene.”
Dean’s eyes turned to ice. “You seem to be confused about why I’m unhappy. You’re not supposed to be here. This room is for detectives and commanding officers and on rare occasion witnesses to listen in on suspect testimony, not snooping rookie beat cops who don’t have anything better to do. Now listen to me, and listen good. I don’t know what your game is, but you’re way out of your league. Detective Moss may have taken a shine to you, but I sure as hell haven’t. Now if you don’t get out of here in two seconds—”
“Detective Justice told me to come!” I blurted out.
Dean cocked his head. “So now you’ve made friends with Ogden, too? You must have quite the silver tongue.”
My cheeks burned, not from anger but from embarrassment. I could barely stand to look Dean in the face. “No. Look, I’m terribly sorry. Justice told me to talk to you. I was heading to breakfast this morning through Miller’s Creek Park when I found out about the murder, except I’d walked through the park last night, probably around the same time as that woman’s death, and when Justice found out he insisted I tell you my story face to face, it’s just that—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Dean’s face lost its frosty chill. “You were walking through Miller’s Creek Park last night? At what time? Ten-thirty? Eleven?”
“Around eleven-fifteen. Like I said, Justice told me you’d want to interview me yourself, but when I got to your desk, you weren’t there. This guy said you were in the interrogation room, and… I don’t know. I just walked in here, and once I started listening I couldn’t tear myself away. I know that was inappropriate of me, and if you need to censure me, I’ll understand, but—”
Dean closed on me and took me by the shoulders, his hands strong and firm. It was only once I felt his touch that I also noticed a wet sensation tickling the corner of my eyes. I wasn’t much of a crier, but the embarrassment of being caught by Dean combined with the lingering terror of learning what happened in the park were testing my limits.
“Hey. Slow down. It’s going to be okay.” He let go of me to pull the chairs out from the desk. He eased me into one before taking a seat himself. “Please. Take a deep breath, think carefully, and tell me everything that happened last night.”
I actually took several deep breaths, but when I started talking, I found it hard to stop. I told him everything, more than I’d told Justice. I gave Dean every detail I could about my timing and path through the park, the smoky haze I’d seen, the sounds I’d heard, the squirrel that crossed the path. Dean poked and prodded, gently asking questions to get every last scrap he could out of me. Eventually, after encouraging me to dig deep and put myself in the moment, to draw every clue out of my mind that was humanely possible, he sighed, leaned back in his chair, and stared into the empty interrogation room. He stayed there for over a minute, quiet and pensive. He cut quite the striking figure against the one-way mirror.
