by C. M. Sutter
“Cut the idle chatter and get to the meat and potatoes,” Frank said. “Where did you go?”
“I stopped at my girlfriend’s hou—”
“Hold that thought.” I pulled my buzzing phone out of my pocket. “I’ll be right back.”
I left the box, took three steps, and entered the observation room. Lutz was calling. “Hey, Boss.” I pressed Speakerphone and leaned back in one of the office chairs.
“I just got a very interesting call from Abrams. Turns out a handful of his patrol officers responded to a call about a burglary a few hours ago.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So one of those officers was Tillson. The burglary happened in the pharmacy area of the CMS store on West Thirty-First Street.”
I jerked upright in my chair. “No shit?”
“No shit. He recognized Paul Harper’s face in the pharmacy employees’ framed photographs. Paul’s glossy eight by ten was hanging next to his diploma and pharmacy credentials.”
“Wow, and when did this burglary happen?”
“During the overnight hours. The employees found the pharmacy emptied out when they arrived at work this morning.”
“And we didn’t hear about it because it isn’t our department.”
“Exactly.”
“Didn’t alarms go off?”
“Apparently not. They have specialists going through the camera feed, but at this point, they believe it was an inside job.”
I rubbed my forehead as I remembered the explanation Jennifer had given us yesterday. “Every employee has a badge that has to be swiped to get in. No, wait a minute. The badge only identifies them, and the bar code on it documents when they clock in and out for payroll purposes. Oh yeah, they all have a six-digit code they enter on a keypad, and that’s what gets them into the building and the pharmacy area.”
“But is that same code used by every employee who works there or just the pharmacy personnel?”
“That much, I don’t know, but Paul was accounted for overnight. Hell, it was Tillson himself and Jackson who sat in the hotel parking lot all night long, and Harper’s car didn’t budge.”
Lutz groaned. “So, how’s it going with him and the lawyer?”
“It sounded like Paul wanted a deal and was about to tell us something when I walked out to take your call. He started to say he stopped at an alleged girlfriend’s house yesterday morning, but now with this new information, I’m pretty sure that was just another fabricated story.”
“Then wrap it up and toss his ass back in a cell. Don’t tell him why either. We have more investigating to do before Paul Harper is released to anyone.”
“You got it, and we’ll stop in your office on our way upstairs.”
I returned to the box and plopped down on the chair. “Looks like you and that girlfriend story will have to wait. We have more pressing things to take care of right now.”
“What! Paul is trying to make a deal. You can’t dismiss us like that,” Reynolds said.
“Sure we can. Just watch.” I called Bill and told him to come and get Paul. He would be staying overnight in his new accommodations.
Frank and I stood and left the room.
“What was that call about?” Frank asked as we took the two flights of stairs to our homicide department.
“I’ll let Lutz explain. I’m sure I got the condensed version, anyway.”
After a courtesy knock, we entered our commander’s office and took seats on the guest chairs. Lutz ran his hand over his balding head and closed out what he was doing on his computer. We had his full attention, and he had ours.
“Okay, what’s this again about the pharmacy employees’ badges and a code?”
“They each wear a badge for identification, and the bar code on it swipes just like a credit card does. That information is stored in their database, and that’s how the work hours are tracked. Swipe when they arrive and swipe when they leave, sort of like a time clock.”
“Sure, and the code is only used to gain entry into the pharmacy?”
“And the building,” Frank said. “So, does somebody want to tell me what’s going on?”
I tipped my head at Lutz. “You can be the bearer of bad news.”
“The CMS store’s pharmacy where Harper works was burglarized overnight, and the shelves and locked cases were emptied of all the big-time drugs. Sounds like they were primarily after opioids, anti-anxiety pills, and sedatives. Those are the types of pharmaceutical drugs people on the street want—especially the opioids.”
I scratched my neck as I thought. “And I just read how opioid sales are increasing in Chicago. Now I know why. We need to find out from Burglary how many pharmacies have been broken into lately or if Paul Harper’s store was a random hit.”
Lutz huffed. “And that would be quite a coincidence if it was.”
“Humph.”
We both turned toward Frank.
I rolled my eyes. “What?”
“Paul came in at nine o’clock. He had possession of his phone until we took it away after our interview with him and before he made Eileen’s ID.”
I tapped Lutz’s desk. “Yeah, and that was about nine forty-five or so.”
“Right. He obviously had to let the pharmacy staff know he wasn’t showing up on time today or at all, so wouldn’t they have told him the pharmacy had been broken into?”
“Of course they would,” Lutz said. “So he deliberately didn’t mention it.”
“That son of a bitch knows the burglars, and they know him. I know he had a hand in it.” I turned to Bob. “You said Tillson realized it was Harper’s pharmacy when he saw Paul’s photograph and credentials on the wall.”
“That’s what he said.”
I raked my fingers across my eyes. “What if the burglars are targeting the pharmacists personally to get the codes from them? All they have to do is see the pictures on the walls that have the full name of every pharmacy employee. They can find out everything they need to know about that person on the internet.”
Frank snapped his fingers. “And go from there with threats of harm if they don’t cooperate.”
“That’s how I see it, partner. We need to know which pharmacies have been hit and interview every staff pharmacist and employee. If they’ve been threatened with bodily harm if they don’t give up the door codes, then that could be the reason Eileen Harper was killed.”
Lutz agreed. “Maybe Paul resisted, and his wife suffered the consequences.”
“But the door was breached, anyway,” I said.
Frank leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’ve got it. Paul wouldn’t give them the codes, they killed Eileen, and they threatened to go after the kids next. He did say he was worried about his children when he went dark for all those hours yesterday.”
“So he finally gave them the codes after his wife was killed?”
I let out a long groan. “Unfortunately, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Lutz lifted the receiver from his desk phone. “I’ll call Commander Jenner in Burglary and get the location and details about every pharmacy that’s been hit. Hang tight in the bull pen until I have that information. Once I do, I’m sending four of you out to interview the employees. I’ll also find out if the camera feed was reviewed at each store. Give Henry and Shawn a heads-up. They’re going out with you.”
Bob jerked his chin toward the door. “Go ahead. This shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes.”
“Should we talk to Paul and his attorney again and check Paul’s temperature on our theory?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Lutz said. “We need some hard evidence to work with first.”
Chapter 16
We had the information we needed by one thirty. Four other pharmacies, all of them CMS stores, had been burglarized in the last three weeks. That meant we had a lot of legwork ahead of us, and according to what Lutz was told, the camera footage was the same in every burglary. Something had been used to cov
er the exterior camera at the back door, the burglars wore masks, and no vehicle was ever caught on camera fleeing the parking lot. They had done their homework well and likely stuck with CMS store pharmacies because they knew a coded entry was used at each one.
I gave Lutz a quick call before we left. “We have a couple of options, Boss. We can each take a pharmacy and spend a decent amount of time there doing individual interviews, or Frank and I can take two, and Henry and Shawn can as well. We’d cut down on the time spent at each store if we interviewed several employees at the same time.”
“Yeah, go ahead with that route. Just make sure to interview the pharmacists first and do that together. They may have been the only targets since they have a lot more at stake than the techs.”
“You got it, sir, and we’re heading out now.”
I called the guys to my desk, and as they looked over my shoulder at my computer, I pulled up the locations of the four remaining stores. They were a good ten miles from each other, and I imagined they had been chosen deliberately to get different police stations involved. What the burglars didn’t take into account was that all the patrol officers throughout the city reported to Abrams, and Tillson happened to be a first responder at the Harper house and was also dispatched to check into the burglary at the CMS store on West Thirty-First Street.
“Well, since none of the pharmacies are near each other, I guess Frank and I will take the south and southeast locations, and you two can have the north and northeast ones. The burglars probably have other western locations on their radar, besides the one that Harper works at.”
Henry smirked. “Depends on how brazen those crooks are. Hell, there’s a CMS Pharmacy on every street corner throughout the city.”
“True enough. I think we should look at the camera footage for the dates in question, too, even though they’ve already been watched. Those video specialists don’t know what kind of vehicle to look for, and even though the black-sedan theory is just that—a theory—it doesn’t hurt to keep our eyes peeled for a car fitting that description leaving the scene.”
I pushed up my sleeve as we walked to the back door—2:09. With any luck, we would be back by the time the second shift began, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Frank climbed in behind the wheel, and we headed south. Through the side mirror, I watched as Henry turned out of the lot and drove in the opposite direction. They had farther to go since our precinct was already south of downtown.
Our first stop was at the intersection of East Seventy-Fifth Street and South Stoney Island Avenue. The pharmacy was located at the south end of a newer-looking strip mall. I had called ahead and told them to expect us.
Frank clicked the left-hand directional and turned in at the oversized lot that accommodated the eight stores filling the space.
I pointed at the last store. “Pull around the building, and let’s check out the back. Think like the burglars and look for the best exit route that might go undetected.”
Frank rounded the building at the CMS store and parked in one of the only remaining spots. The fifteen or so cars parked in the immediate area told us that the space was designated for employee parking.
“Let’s walk around for a minute,” I said as Frank killed the engine.
What lay ahead of us were the back doors to each store for the entire length of the lot, which spanned the distance between two side streets. Each street could have been used as an exit route, and if the burglars turned onto either one and away from the front of the strip mall and East Seventy-Fifth Street, they’d disappear and never show up on camera.
“So they either parked on one of those streets and sneaked in on foot, or they snugged the car against the wall and it wasn’t picked up on surveillance.” I pointed at the wall-mounted camera right above the rear door. It was there, I assumed, to catch the image of every person who entered the back of the building by tapping the keypad, and that would include not only pharmacy staff but also every employee who worked at the store.
The best chance we had of catching the vehicle on camera was if one of the stores was a stand-alone building where all the exits could be seen, and by checking the street-view option on an internet search, we could find out. For now, we had interviews to conduct.
Frank returned to the front of the building and parked. We entered, walked to the first counter, showed our badges, and explained to the cashier that we needed to speak to the store manager, Mr. Walters.
“Right away, Detectives. I’ll page him to come downstairs.”
I gave her a thank-you nod then put my eyes on the selection of magazines. Frank bought cigarettes and snugged the pack in his inner jacket pocket while we waited.
Minutes later, Mr. Walters, a fortysomething man with a white Oxford shirt tucked into a pair of black dress slacks, walked toward us with his hand outstretched. With the introductions made, he escorted us to his second-floor office. I wanted to cut to the chase since I knew the interviews would take some time, but we needed to review the camera footage from the day the store was burglarized.
I began. “We have a few questions for you before we get to the pharmacy employee interviews.”
“Sure thing. Shoot.”
“First, do all the employees park out back, and does everyone use a code to enter the building?”
“Yep, and yep. All store employees park behind the building, enter the same code to get into the back door, and then go to the lunchroom or their workstations, depending on the time they arrived. The only difference between the pharmacy staff and the store staff is that the pharmacy workers have a second keypad with a different code to enter their secured area.”
“Hold it. You said it’s a different code to enter the pharmacy?” Frank looked at me with furrowed brows.
“Definitely. Nobody but pharmacy employees is allowed in there, and they face immediate termination if they give that code to anyone else.”
“Are all the stores set up that way, with a different code for the pharmacy door?” I asked.
“Absolutely. These are cookie-cutter stores, very similar to fast-food restaurants. If it works, leave it alone and keep adding stores.”
“Good to know. Now, because we may have a lead on the vehicle the burglars used, we’ll need to see that day’s camera footage.”
“But the specialists looked at the footage from every store that was hit, and the only conclusion they came to was that the method of entry was identical in all cases.”
“We understand that, sir, but they weren’t looking for a specific vehicle leaving the area either.”
“Sure, but it covers a lot of time. The store closes at ten p.m. and doesn’t reopen until eight a.m. That’s ten hours of footage to review.”
“Then how about putting that date’s footage on a stick for us? We’ll have our officers look it over.”
“Not a problem, and I’ll do that right now.” The manager pushed a stick into the port and pressed a few computer keys, and the file transfer began. He gave us a reassuring smile. “It’ll only take ten minutes or so to complete. I’ll bring it downstairs when it’s done if you want to get started on the interviews.”
Frank and I stood. “That’d be great. We are kind of pinched for time with all the stores we need to visit today.”
“Understood. The pharmacist’s name is Alvina Christianson.”
“A female?”
“Yes, and a very dedicated employee. She’s been the lead pharmacist here for three years.”
We thanked him and showed ourselves out.
“So why do you think Jennifer forgot to mention the codes were different for each door?” Frank asked as we took the stairs down to the first floor.
“I don’t know. Maybe because she’s new?”
Chapter 17
At the consultation counter, we introduced ourselves to Alvina Christianson, the pharmacist. Once she realized who we were and what we wanted, she did her best to remain calm, but I could see beneath her cover of composure and knew she
was sweating bullets. She led us to the lunchroom, where we took seats opposite her at the cafeteria-style table.
With my notepad already pulled from my pocket, I put pen to paper and was ready to go. “Because time is of the essence, ma’am, we need to get down to the nitty-gritty.”
It was our job to be able to read people, and she was an open book. The color had drained from her face upon introductions, and now her skin had a sheen to it. She forced a smile as she dabbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I’ll help in any way I can.”
“Good to know. So what can you tell us about the days leading up to the burglary?” I asked.
She frowned. “Detectives, that was two weeks ago. There’s no way on earth I’d remember day-to-day events prior to the burglary.” A look of relief spread across her face as though she thought we would accept that answer as fact.
“Sure.” From that point, I made up my dialogue as I went along. “The thing is, these burglars target pharmacists because they have more to lose than the techs do.” I glanced at Frank. “Wouldn’t you say a female pharmacist would be a prime target?”
“I would. Easier to intimidate and better at keeping quiet. A buck says you’re the breadwinner in the family. I mean pharmacists make a damn good living.” He chuckled as he locked eyes with her. “I bet you earn more money a year than I do.”
She wrung her hands and, when she clearly noticed we were watching, placed them in her lap.
“Nervous about something?” I asked.
She stammered, “No, of course not.”
“Then go ahead with your recall,” Frank said.
“There isn’t anything to say. Those days, as far as I remember, were just like any other.”
“We can compel you to come into the station for questioning, but it won’t be as laid-back there.” I tapped the table with my pen then set it down. “Do you have kids?”
“Yes, two boys.”
“And you’re worried about their welfare if you talk to the police. Am I correct?”
She nodded.
“Do you really want to put the rest of your colleagues through grueling interviews with us when you know damn well that they weren’t threatened by the burglars? You won’t be the only one who came clean with us. Other pharmacists were threatened too.”
