Twist of Fate – A Jack West Novel (Jack West Mystery Book 1)

by Deanna King

  He slipped out the pictures he had Lucky got from the medical examiner’s office.

  Sean sat, his face had turned ashen, the sweat on his forehead had grown exponentially, and he was silent as Jack spoke.

  “Now I want you to look at this.”

  Sean stared, his eyes fixated on the wall across from him.

  He snapped his fingers. “Sean.”

  “I-I thought you wanted to hear,” he droned, and then his voice gained some force, “my story about what happened, Detective, is that out the window or what?”

  He was trying to regain his control over the situation, but Jack was not about to release his own control.

  “It’s my turn right now. I’ve heard your story, and it doesn’t fly. I want you to take a look at this picture…now.” Jack’s forefinger was tapping the first picture on the stack of photos that lay on top of the table.

  Sean Stegwig looked at his finger jabbing at a picture of his dead mother. There was an obvious hole in her throat, her half-naked body on a stainless steel table, flayed open, and her rib cage exposed. The picture showed broken ribs and heavy postmortem bruising. Sean didn’t flinch, his eyes like button eyes on a stuffed animal, non-seeing, without emotions.

  “It is my dead mother. I don’t hafta see pictures, I know she is dead.” His voice was deadpan, not an ounce of sadness, no remorse whatsoever.

  “I want you to look closely. Do you see her ribs and the bruising? That happened after she was already dead or while she was dying.”

  The kick to her ribs had been postmortem, but Sean didn’t know this unless he’d leaned over her checking to see if she was dead. The fact was he hadn’t cared if she was dead or not, he despised her.

  “Someone hated her, hated her enough to bash in her ribs, breaking damn near every one of them on her right side. This is what we call a personal act of violence, Sean. The killer knew his victim. He loathed the victim so much, even after they were dead, he wanted to inflict pain. It’s a known fact that you detested your mother.”

  “Just because she and I weren’t close, doesn’t mean that I would do that,” he spat out in the defensive.

  “Sean, go to this picture.”

  “I—” he began, but Jack cut him off.

  “Look at the next picture. Tell me what do you see?”

  It was an enhanced picture of Marcus Stegwig’s skull, X-ray viewable without the assistance of an LED light. Sean looked at the photo.

  “A skull, so what, what’s that to me?” He licked his lips then slouched away from the pictures, not an ounce of remorse.

  “This is your father’s skull. I want you to take a look at this, Sean, it’s a bullet that was lodged into his skull, to be exact his parietal bone, see?”

  He leaned in and looked closer then shrugged. “What have I got to do with that? I mean, he shot himself. If the bullet didn’t exit what does that matter to me? All I did was remove the gun and make sure not to get my prints on it. Detective West, that’s not a crime now, is it?”

  “Yes, it is, it’s called ‘tampering with evidence,’ and it is a criminal offense. You can be charged with a felony, by all rights we have you on that account.”

  “Maybe I do a few months and get out since it would be my first offense. Odds are I get probation for a year. That would be a cakewalk. I’m used to a pool house as my living quarters, hell, it’s my personal jail, and I have no real friends.” He was very blasé about the situation.

  “If you go to prison on a misdemeanor, you might just do a six-month stint. But, son, federal prison is up to twenty years and a fine, not that the fine means much to anyone doing twenty now, does it?”

  “I’m telling you, all I did was move the gun and the note. Go arrest my father for killing my mother because I am sure you can legally kill yourself. Besides, if he had attempted and failed, you guys would have him for murder and in the nuthouse,” Sean spouted out.

  Jack squared his shoulders and pulled out another photo of the bathroom doorjamb, and the bullet that CSU had dug out. He needed to break this kid’s confidence; he needed him to confess to the murders.

  “Suicide is against the law, but it’s difficult to prosecute a dead person. You’re right, your dad may have gone to the nuthouse. Now, let’s add to the charge of tampering with evidence. There is another fact as well. You forged your mother’s signature on the trust forms and we know why. When we get the results back from the handwriting analysis, we’ll have you on forgery. We’re going to examine the suicide note, and I’m betting that’s not your father’s handwriting either.”

  “I think the note was too messed up to read. He killed her and was nervous so his hands were sweating, it was smeared.” He was confident they’d see it that way.

  “Technology has come a long way, you should know that.” Dawson Luck stared at the boy.

  “Okay, now back to the bullet in the X-ray. You’re telling me your father shot himself twice in the head. Because here is the other bullet we found, and it matches ballistics on the gun we found in the pool house where you live.”

  “It was a small caliber, maybe he had to shoot himself twice. I’ve heard there have been people who’ve had to shoot twice to get the job done…they had just enough left in ‘em if they missed the first time you know. I did read that somewhere, or he had a practice shot, you know, to get his nerve up. Man, this is horseshit, how would I know?” He screamed, each word louder than the first.

  Jack hitched his brow and stared at him.

  Sean continued his rant. “Were my prints found on the fucking gun? Is that what this is about, because I can assure you, my prints are nowhere on that damn gun, so what do you have, speculation, that’s damn well all you have,” he shrieked in Jack’s face.

  With his hands cuffed behind him and his chair facing the table, the boy popped up out of his seat and shoved the table with his midsection, trying to knock Jack off his chair.

  Lucky took a step in from the corner of the wall and got into Sean’s face, so close that he felt the detective’s hot breath.

  “If I were you, Mr. Stegwig, I would sit back and lower your voice. And don’t try shoving this table again, because if you continue to do so I’ll call and have someone bring me some leg irons and a white jacket with buckles. Have I made myself clear?”

  He looked up at Dawson’s face not even an inch from his own, and the detective’s eyes were cold as steel. The boy had no doubt that he wouldn’t go through with his threats. He sat down, and a sudden change in his angry demeanor occurred. He relaxed, sat back in his chair, and slouched giving an air of impudence. He thought he was untouchable. They’d never be able to pin this on him. They had no real proof; all they had was just circumstantial evidence, nothing more.

  “Sean, you’re right, your fingerprints weren’t found on the gun. So here’s what we have.” Jack gave a dramatic pause and then looked at his partner.

  “Detective Luck, will you go check to see if a fingerprint clerk is free, so we can get Mr. Stegwig’s prints? Wait, I have them on the first bottle of Sprite you drank, isn’t that right? Furthermore, he freely let me take that bottle. I’m betting we can get his DNA to match up to the hair Bennie found since it wasn’t a match to his father, mother, or the housekeeper. You know what else, I am betting we’ll pull prints from the Diet Sprite bottle and they’ll match the prints that were found on the gun clip which was in the gun that killed both Marta and Marcus Stegwig.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “Funny thing is, you know, for a man who supposedly killed his wife then shot himself, I had figured his prints would have been on the gun clip, but somehow he must have killed his wife and then wiped them off, after he shot himself…twice. Is that what you think
happened, Detective Luck?”

  At that moment all the blood drained from Sean’s face and all the air went out of his pompous attitude. He was beaten, and he never asked for an attorney, he thought he had it all covered.

  “Let me offer you this. You’re facing the needle here, a double murder in Texas, that’s a capital offense and punishable by death. You went in with the gun, which showed intent to kill or harm. I mean, what happened, you argued, and then you got angry. You didn’t storm out, you lashed out, with a gun you had with you, prepared to kill your parents. You have two first degree murders to answer to, Sean, and you will have to answer for them.”

  The kid had all but passed out as Jack spoke these words.

  “Or,” he continued, “you can confess. Write your confession, sign it, and I’ll put a word in for you at the DA’s office, and you may get life with no possible parole, but you’ll be alive. What’s it going to be?”

  They had him. They had his fingerprints, they had his DNA, they had the forms he tried to forge, even the suicide note he wrote and signed his father’s name on. They had it all, and he was in no position to talk his way out of it, it was impossible. Crap, he did not want to die, even if he had to go to prison for life, at least he would be alive.

  If she had given him that trust money, he would not be in this position. He hated his mother, that stingy bitch. He wrote out his confession. He owed major amounts of money to several people that were ready to break both his legs and worse. Now he would be safe from them. It never crossed his mind that they had hands doing their bidding in prison…Sean was in for some major life lessons.

  Jack walked the handcuffed boy to Booking; he was booked, fingerprinted, and given his obligatory phone call. Jack was sure he would call his sister. Once she found out what the circumstances were, he highly doubted she would do much to help him, except get him an attorney then let him fry.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jack sat in Captain Yao’s office waiting for him to finish a call—story of his life. When he was in his office, the captain was constantly on the phone.

  “Yes, okay then, I’ll talk to you later, what? Milk and cereal, got it.”

  “Sorry, Jack, that was the wife and one of my many daily calls. I gotta go to the store on the way home tonight, she’s stuck at home with a puny kid today.”

  “Nothing serious I hope?”

  “Naw, youngest has a cold, not serious, no fever, just not up to par. Tell me about this kid, Sean Stegwig, what was the story?”

  “He’s going away, Dave. I hope it’s double life sentences without parole, for doing his parents. He has a good chance to get the needle. He was in waist-deep to a loan shark, needed cash and lots of it. He has a huge gambling problem. He went to the mom about getting money from his trust, and she wasn’t about to give him another dime. His old man had already talked the mom into a two million advance. Sean used it to buy that building and adjacent land to get what he needed to start Red Hawk Tel-Com. He gambled the rest away. His business was failing, or rather failed, and he had taken a loan out on the building and then gambled again. He got in knee-deep and kept letting the water rise. The father had no money to give the boy because he lost on a huge investment. He had been trying to get the wife to bail him out financially. From what the daughter told us, she was a tough cookie. She wasn’t going to help either of them. The kid figured he would do them, and make it look like a murder/suicide. Then he would be able to draw on his trust. Since he was also a beneficiary on the four million dollar life insurance policy, he thought he’d get that too.”

  “Greed and gambling, how many lives does that ruin?”

  “We got him by his wimpy nuts, Dave. His prints are all over the clip that was left in the gun and the ballistics match. The hair found on the father was a DNA match to Sean. I called Bennie an hour ago. He found tiny spots of blood on the white boat tennis shoes we got out of the kid’s trash. The blood DNA on the jeans and the T-shirt matched both mother and father’s DNA. Captain, the kid kicked her, she was already dead, breaking all her ribs on the right side. He blamed her for his issues. He didn’t care for the father either. When his father walked in, he held him at gunpoint. He panicked, made him go into his bathroom to do him. In the end, he figured a double indemnity payout on the life insurance policies would increase his cash intake, not to mention getting his trust fund upon their death. He was, in a word, trying to ‘double down’ and he went bust on both hands.”

  “He’ll get double all right, consecutive life sentences or the needle, you know that, don’t you?”

  “He wrote out and signed his confession, Cap. I told him I’d put a word in at the DA’s office, you know, to take the death penalty off the table. I can suggest it, but it ain’t my final call.”

  “Good work, you and Luck both did a bang-up job.”

  “Hey, we’re part of one of the greatest departments in the state, you know we gotta keep our image up. Thanks, and I’ll tell Lucky you said so.”

  “Where is Lucky, I thought he would be in here to get his own pat on the back?”

  “He’s typing up the reports. You can give him that pat on the back when he gives you the reports. I am sure he’s cussing me right now for not doing some of the paperwork.”

  “You’re going to get back to the cold case you were working, both of you?” He shuffled some of the files on his desk, looking for something.

  “Yes, sir, that’s the plan, until the next fresh one comes in, that is. You know, this case is a complete mystery. I can’t figure out the motive, it’s stumped me, and you know me, I have to finish the puzzle, hunting for the piece to see the entire picture.” He paused.

  “What, Jack?” Yao looked up from his paper shuffling.

  He put his hand on his chin and stroked it, and he felt the stubble that had started.

  “I can’t find a plausible motive. The girl was a poor nobody for all intents and purposes, and there was no sexual assault. No one ever dug into the case, the work done was piss poor and lacking. I think the dicks working the case just let it fall by the wayside.”

  “Jack, you know Houston, it is a big place, lots of crime, like Dallas, Los Angeles, hell, New York too. These places all have one thing in common—they’re a breeding ground for criminals. Unfortunately, Houston is a member of that elite group. You know how it is, you have to let a case go, and you move onto the next one when you have zilch to follow up with or all leads dry up. We weren’t here back then, who can say why this case amongst many got left to go back to the dark recesses of the unsolved and archived cases, huh?”

  The captain was right. He was aware of unsolved cases, like his brother Cole’s was. That didn’t make him feel any better. Unsolved cases where a perp roamed free was not right, leads or no leads, forensics or nor forensics. He felt that justice should be, no, must be served, no matter how many days or years slipped by.

  “Jack, if you weren’t a cop I think you would’ve made one heck of a prosecutor, you know that?”

  “No, Davis, not me, I’d want all those killing assholes to get the needle, taxpayers would’ve loved me, prisons would’ve been smaller, and our tax dollars put to better use. But, no, otherwise, I have always loved being a homicide detective.”

  . . .

  It was late, he had helped Lucky finish up the Stegwig murder case reports, and he was mentally exhausted, it had been a very long day. Looking at the clock, he knew they needed to stop for the day. It was past ten, and he was famished. Besides, he needed to keep the overtime down, but some days you did what you had to do to get the job done. Neither crime nor reports had a time clock; they started and stopped on their own time.

  “We can wrap it up and tie loose ends in the morning. Whatdaya say we go get a burger
and a beer?”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to head home to see the wife and eat leftovers. Besides, all these late nights we haven’t seen each other very much.”

  Jack turned his lips downward. “Gotcha, partner, I understand the wife and all.”

  Lucky waved at him as he headed toward the back stairwell. “See ya in the morning.” Then he was out the door headed home to his beautiful wife and a hot leftover dinner.

  Jack groaned. He had not been to the grocery store in a few weeks, he knew what was waiting at home for him—a can of chili, a half sleeve of saltine crackers and one lone beer that sat in his fridge. Lordy, what a dismal picture that painted, nevertheless, he knew it was his life. Reaching into his pocket for his keys, his head shot up and one word popped into his thoughts…Gretchen, and two words came to mind, Fetchin’ Gretchen. Moreover, all the words that Fetchin’ Gretchen’ conjured…attractive, sweet, charming, delightful, captivating, lovely, and very enchanting. He did need a woman in his life. Not a wife, not yet, but he needed someone, everyone did.

  A smile on his face, he decided that a beer at the Lone Star Saloon was what he needed to complete his day. In fact, they served pizza. He was starving.

  He had a change of clothes in his locker and decided to dress very casually for this visit. He changed his clothes then looked at himself in the mirror. He wore a pair of well-worn Wranglers and a pullover shirt with a collar—he was also the dedicated Texan with his black Justin Ropers. He needed a shave but didn’t have shaving gear with him. His eyes looked tired, but at least he didn’t have the usual bags most homicide detectives touted. His hair was nice, he thought, but he needed a haircut, it was beginning to touch the collar of his shirt. He assessed his physique—his left side, right side, and his frontal appearance—he wasn’t bad looking, or that’s what he thought. Hell, he even looked at his posterior, what a dumb thing to do. He wasn’t overweight, a love handle was forming; too many James Coney Island chili dogs, too much fast food. He smiled, and here he was off to eat pizza and drink beer…because of her, because of Gretchen. Then a sad thought settled within. He wondered how she saw him. Did she see a worn-out cop, a man with too many ghosts? He’d seen some horrid things and met some bad people in his years on the force. He took dangerous chances every day on the job, but this thing with women, it was more dangerous. If it didn’t work out it was like a homicide, a homicide to your heart.