by C. M. Sutter
Her eyes welled up, and tears slid down her cheeks. “Word spreads through the stores. We’ve heard about Paul Harper’s wife being murdered.”
“We don’t have any proof that her death was related to the burglaries, Mrs. Christianson.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t take that chance.”
Frank pushed a little harder. “Do you know where Paul Harper is right now?”
She shook her head.
“He’s in jail for impeding our investigation. Is your husband prepared to take care of your two boys alone?”
She sobbed openly.
I gave Frank the shit-eye. His comment was cold, but maybe cold was what we needed to get her to open up.
“I don’t know who they are, I swear. A letter came to my home three weeks ago along with photographs of my boys. Pictures of them at school, others of them playing outside our house, one of them at the store with me, and another with me and my husband at the park with the kids. Those men are everywhere and had followed us for a solid week without our knowledge.” Her eyes darted wildly. “They could have followed you here and know I’m speaking with you. My family is at risk, and I can’t say more than I just did. What I did say was probably too much.”
“We need to see those pictures and the letter,” I said.
“I should speak to my attorney before I do or say anything else. I have to get back to work now, so if I’m not under arrest, you’ll have to excuse me.”
She got up, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and walked away.
“Damn it. This isn’t going to be easy. Do we actually need to arrest every CMS pharmacist in order to get them to talk to us?”
“Maybe that’s the route we’ll have to take.” I sighed as I pushed back my chair and stood. I jerked my head toward the door. “She was the target, so there’s no use speaking to anyone else.” As we walked to the counter, I waved Alvina over. “I’m sorry, but you leave us no choice in the matter. We need answers from you, and you refused to talk to us. That means you’ll be taken into custody and held in our jail for up to forty-eight hours before we have to charge you or release you. We’re investigating a murder, and you, along with the victim’s husband, are withholding evidence. He’s in lockup, and that’s where you’re headed too.”
“You can’t do that to me!”
“Actually, we can. Your lawyer can speak on your behalf, but he needs to meet you at our station, so let’s go.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, but you will be if you put up a fight. We can stop at your home and pick up that evidence you told us about, which will cast a favorable light on you and show you cooperated with us, or we can take you against your will, arrest you, and lock you up for impeding our investigation—it’s your choice. Murder is no joke, and we aren’t taking it lightly. You’ve so much as admitted you have evidence that you’re withholding, so we can charge you with co-conspiracy if we want to.”
She turned to her colleagues, who were staring a hole through all of us. “I have to go,” she said. “Call Remy Sanchez to take over.” She grabbed her purse and headed toward the front door with us.
We came face-to-face with Mr. Walters just as he descended the stairs.
“I have the stick, Detectives.” He frowned at Alvina. “What’s going on?”
I reached out, took the stick, and thanked him. “With any luck, Mrs. Christianson will return to work tomorrow. For now, she’s leaving with us.”
Chapter 18
As they killed time in the musty-smelling motel room, Wesley—kneeled on the couch and with both hands braced against the window frame—pushed up with everything he had. The old window had seen better days, and it squeaked in protest as he wrenched it back and forth to raise it.
After several minutes of the fight, he finally succeeded in lifting it five inches before he ran out of steam.
“Ah, fresh air.” He plopped down on the couch, and the late October breeze raised goose bumps on the back of his neck, causing an involuntary shiver.
“Jesus, Wes, use your head. You could have just walked your ass outside, had a smoke, and come back in. Now you’re letting forty-degree air into the room. It’s colder than shit in here now.”
Wes grumbled. “The room stank and needed some fresh air. We aren’t paying to heat this shithole, anyway. Give it five minutes, and I’ll close the window.”
Rory moved to the table—farther away from the breeze blowing in—and opened the gallery on his phone. He tapped the last video he had taken and watched it for the tenth time. It showed the wife of Tom Lansky, the pharmacist who worked at the CMS Pharmacy on Fifty-Fourth and South Pulaski, just leaving her house. Rory and Wes had followed her to the grocery store, and Wes interacted with her at the produce aisle, cautious to have his back toward the camera. That would get her husband’s blood boiling. They continued following her to the bank, the gas station, then home. Tomorrow, they would text the video to Tom’s cell phone and tell him he had twelve hours to give them the codes or his wife would disappear.
Wes leaned against Rory’s shoulder and enjoyed the video with him. Both men wore grins as wide as their faces.
“I wish I could see his expression when he watches this. We can get to his old lady anytime we want, day or night, and there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it short of going to the police.”
“And we’ll tell him in no uncertain terms what happens if he does. All we need from him is both codes and we’re golden. Easy peasy,” Wes said.
Rory jerked his head toward the window. “Yeah, easy peasy. Now go see how easy it is to close that piece-of-shit window. I’m freezing my ass off in here.”
Chapter 19
Once Alvina was settled into the back of our cruiser and Frank took to the street, I made several calls. The first one was to our commander.
“Bob, it’s Jesse. Change of plans on our end.”
“How so?”
“Turns out the pharmacist from East Seventy-Fifth Street and South Stoney Island Avenue is a female who’s hiding evidence. The burglars contacted her directly via letter and included photographs of her children. She’s sitting in the back seat of the cruiser as we speak, and we’re making a pit stop at her house to pick up said evidence. Although we haven’t placed her under arrest, we told her that the evidence will go a long way in keeping that from happening. We also have footage of the night of the burglary. There’s ten hours to look through, and I figure a couple of officers can handle that chore.”
“Sounds like a plan. Go ahead and update Henry and Shawn, and I’ll have Bill spruce up a holding cell fit for a woman.”
“Will do.” I clicked off the call and looked at Alvina over my left shoulder. “Go ahead and give Detective Mills the directions to your house. I have another call to make.”
Several minutes later, we arrived at a group of three-story condos, and Frank slowed at the curb. “Which building?”
“The second one on the right. We live on the first floor—it’s easier with a family.”
After Frank parked, I grabbed the handle and climbed out, then I opened the back door for Alvina. “Lead the way.”
Inside the building, we were separated from the units by a vestibule with a wall-mounted intercom, mailboxes, and a panel with call buttons for every resident—similar to most multifamily buildings I’d been in before.
Alvina slid her key into the knob and gave it a half turn to the right. “It’s down the hall to the left, number six,” she said as we followed her through.
“What does your husband do for work?” I asked as she stopped in front of her door and used a different key to unlock it.
“He delivers frozen food to grocery stores.”
“Day shift hours?”
She nodded while she opened the door. The house was dark and quiet. Alvina flipped the switch, and the foyer lit up.
“The letter is in the bedroom under my side of the mattress.”
“Go ahead and show us,” Frank said. “
Does your husband know about the letter?”
“No, since he’d insist I call the police.”
Frank looked at me and smirked. “At least he has some common sense.”
She shot Frank a glare. “I was afraid for my boys, Detective Mills.”
The master bedroom was behind the last door on the right side of the hallway. We entered behind Alvina, and she went directly to the far side of the bed, lifted the mattress, and retrieved the manila envelope. She passed it to me, and we exited the room.
I held the envelope with my shirt cuff. “Do you have something I can put this in? The fewer fingerprints on it, the better.”
She walked to the kitchen, opened the pantry door, and pulled out a plastic grocery bag. “Here.”
“That’ll do.”
She held it open, and I dropped the envelope inside then tied the ends of the bag. I cocked my head and gave her a stare. “Anything else we need to know or see before we head out?”
“No. The envelope is the only physical thing I’ve received from them.”
“As opposed to?” Frank asked.
“As opposed to nothing.” She held her face in her hands and cried. “I did this for my kids, and now I’ll either be fired or go to jail. I gave them the codes to both doors but denied it up and down to my employer when we were all questioned.”
“And how did you give them the codes?” I asked. “Did you meet with them?”
“No, I refused to. Why would I trust being alone with somebody who threatened the lives of my children?”
Frank held open the front door, and we walked out. “Then how?”
“The instructions are in the letter. They made me write the codes down on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and tape it to the bottom of a bus stop bench in front of the grocery store on East Seventy-Fifth and South Blackstone Avenue.”
“That’s just great. So you have no way to communicate with them?”
“No.”
I tipped my chin toward the cruiser’s rear door. “Go ahead and get in. We need to record everything you tell us at the station, and we’ll have Forensics go over the contents of that envelope.” I held the back door open for her, she climbed in, then we left.
It was a twenty-minute ride to the station, and we escorted Alvina through the back door and to our jail wing. Bill met us at the secured doors.
“Go with Bill for now, and we’ll get back to you in a bit.”
A panicked look crossed Alvina’s face. “Go with him where?”
“To a holding cell. You may not want to admit it, but in a roundabout way, Mrs. Harper might not have died if you had come forward with that evidence and your story two weeks ago.” I nodded to Bill, then Frank and I walked away. Feigning ignorance and claiming fear didn’t excuse illegal activities in my book. Alvina Christianson, Paul Harper, and anyone else working at the remaining pharmacies who gave the door codes to the burglars were complicit in the deaths of Eileen Harper and everyone who might fall victim after her.
We reached Lutz’s office, I knuckled the door, and he waved us in.
“Good, good, you guys are back.” Bob set his reading glasses on his desk and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s see what you have.” He pulled the box of gloves off the bookcase at his back, and we each snugged a pair over our hands.
“Shouldn’t we get Mike up here?” I asked.
“Yeah, let me give him a call.” Seconds later, Lutz placed the phone back on the base and said Mike was on his way up.
I unknotted the bag and shook the contents of the envelope out onto Lutz’s desk. Mike walked in, already gloved, and stood at our sides.
“May I?” he asked.
“Yeah, go for it. We haven’t looked at the contents yet.”
Mike gingerly pinched the brass clasp together, slipped the flap open, and dumped out the letter and photos. Four photographs were included with the letter, and each had an image of the two sons—grade school–age kids. In front of us were pictures of the boys with their parents and of them at school, playing in the yard, and at the grocery store with Alvina.
“I’ll admit, if I was a parent, that would rattle my cage too,” Mike said.
“I agree, but the burglars could have been behind bars by now if somebody had come forward and done the right thing.”
Frank tucked his hands into his pockets and jingled his change. “True enough, but those maniacs are cunning. They know to target people with families, and they use that against them to get the pharmacy codes.”
Lutz whistled. “But the initial threat didn’t work with Paul, so they acted on that threat to show him they couldn’t be ignored. After Eileen’s murder, he caved in and gave them the codes anyway.”
“A day late and a dollar short,” I said, “but the kids would have been next if he hadn’t complied.”
“They contacted Alvina in advance with this letter and the photos to mess with her mind. Chances are, Paul had advance warning, too, and whatever that was could have been in his house, yet nothing incriminating was found during the search. He needs to start talking, or he’ll be officially charged. Enough of this holding-him-for-forty-eight-hours shit. He’s looking at years behind bars. By this time tomorrow, every pharmacist and tech at every burglarized store is going to be questioned. We’ll check reports to see if any of them contacted police once they were threatened by the burglars. If they didn’t file a report, they’re all going to see the inside of our jail. Looking the other way doesn’t give anyone a pass. By my definition of the crime, they were accomplices to capital burglary and murder.”
I unfolded the letter and read it aloud. The threats were against the entire Christianson family, with emphasis on the sons. If Alvina didn’t provide the door codes according to the burglars’ instructions by the next day at three thirty when school let out, the boys would suffer the consequences. One of the burglars would be watching the drop, and the other would be parked at the school. Any cops or wrong moves at the bus stop and the boys would be kidnapped and killed.
“Those threats are pretty intimidating,” I said, “but they weren’t quite as clever as they thought they were since they openly admitted there were two of them.”
Lutz jerked his head toward the door. “Somebody has to know more than they’re telling us. Put Mr. Harper back in a box and get his attorney here. He’s getting one chance to come clean, or we’ll arrest his ass for aiding in the murder of his wife.”
“On it,” I said.
Lutz turned to Mike. “Test the letter, photos, and envelope for everything. Speaking of the envelope, is there a way to tell what post office it came from?”
Mike shrugged. “Sometimes mail is postmarked and delivered directly from the local post office, but that’s usually in small towns. In large cities, mail goes to processing centers where it’s postmarked, and then the mail is redistributed to the local carrier in the town that delivers it.”
“So that’s a no?”
“Sorry, but the postmark won’t help you.”
“All right, just do whatever you can with that evidence.”
“Sure thing.” Mike took the letter, photos, and envelope then walked out.
I headed toward the door. “I’ll get ahold of Reynolds and tell him he’s needed back at the jail.”
The attorney showed up a half hour later, and we were soon with them in the interrogation room for the second time that day.
Sitting at the metal table again, I cut to the chase. “Here’s what we know, Paul, and we aren’t about to listen to another second of your bullshit.”
Reynolds interrupted with his hand held up. “Talk to me, not him.”
“Sure, we’ll play your game, but this message is meant for Paul, so listen up, buddy.” I glared into Paul’s eyes then turned my focus to the attorney. “We have another pharmacist sitting in a cell, and she was also contacted by the burglars via a letter that is now in our hands. The pharmacist was threatened with bodily harm against her family if she didn’t give up the door code
s. Now, there’s a good chance that Paul was contacted in advance as well. The only difference between him and the other pharmacist is that she took the threats seriously, and her family is still alive. Paul didn’t, and Eileen was murdered because of it. Here’s the deal. We need that evidence, and we need to know who those burglars are now!” I slammed my open hand on the table, causing everyone to jump.
“That outburst was entirely uncalled for, Detective McCord. I believe we’re finished here.”
“Fine by us.” I leaned across the table and sneered in Paul’s face. “You’ve seen the last of your kids for a long time, pal. Stand up. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and capital burglary.”
Paul squeezed his temples then buried his face in his hands. “Wait, I’ll tell you the truth, but I want a deal.”
“We’re done.” I stood, and Frank followed suit. “You have a dead wife and three kids who don’t know what the hell happened to their parents, and your only concern is self-preservation, you piece of shit. There’s no deal until we have those killers in custody, and then it might be revisited.”
“Okay, okay!”
Reynolds whispered in Paul’s ear.
“No. I’m done victimizing my family. I was so worried about my job, and now Eileen is dead, and it’s my fault.”
Frank let out a huff. “Finally, something we can all agree on.”
Chapter 20
Against his attorney’s advice, over the next hour, Paul told us that the burglars did contact him in advance, and the first contact was a phone call to him at work.
“I hung up on the guy, thinking it was a crank call, but then a letter arrived a few days later. That one was meant as pure intimidation. Inside were pictures of Eileen going for a morning jog, buying groceries, arriving at the nail salon, and then pulling into the garage. They knew her every move and where we lived, but I wouldn’t give them the codes. I knew I’d be blamed and likely fired or, worse, thrown in jail for helping burglars steal pharmaceuticals from my store.”
