Final Vows

by Karen Kingsbury

  Meanwhile, Dan had mixed feelings when he saw Goldberg walk into his room. Within the past seventy-two hours, Dan had grown increasingly certain that police were focusing their investigation on him. This bothered him so much that the day before he had withdrawn his permission for police to search his house.

  Of course, that had neither surprised Lynch nor stopped the investigation at 315 South Myers. Ever since he’d interviewed Carol’s friend, Cathy Hines, Lynch had known that Dan was angry about police searching his house. By the time Dan actually withdrew his consent, Lynch had long since had the paperwork for a search warrant drawn up. An hour after Dan demanded that police stop searching the house, the search warrant was approved and the investigation continued as it had before. Lynch decided that the only reason Dan withdrew his consent to have police search his house was that he was worried they might actually catch the responsible party.

  To the church friends who stopped in and visited him at the hospital, Dan offered a different reason for his reluctance. He told them police were trying to find evidence that would connect him with Carol’s murder. They were trying to frame him, he said. The solution was simple in Dan’s opinion: He needed to do whatever he could to get the officers out of his home. That way they would be unable to fabricate evidence and look for clues that, according to Dan, just weren’t there.

  As one of his friends later observed, Dan was ripe for such paranoid thinking. The recipe of his volatile personality, mixed with a heap of pressure and an alcohol dependency, made for a batch of paranoia the likes of which put people in mental hospitals.

  Dan was so paranoid about police that with each passing day he became more convinced they were spying on him, tapping his phone conversations, and purposely ignoring, hiding, or even destroying information that might go against their newfound theory that Dan had killed his wife.

  In the hours before Sergeant Goldberg’s arrival, Dan began to feel the first stirrings of his unreasonable fear. During that time he had done little more than stare out his hospital window. Why haven’t they arrested anyone, he had wondered. He had drummed his fingers nervously on the table next to his hospital bed. No one understood. Everyone seemed to be treating his situation as if it was just another common occurrence. Why weren’t they listening to him?

  How could they think I killed Carol, he had asked himself for the hundredth time. He remembered their last meal together and how happy Carol had been. Never, he told himself, could he hurt Carol. She was all he’d ever had, everything that had ever meant anything to him.

  Why were the police looking at him? Dan had started to shake from the anxiety his thoughts were causing him. He knew that if they ever blamed him for Carol’s murder, he would be unable to handle it. He had suffered enough trauma. The one person who had believed in him was gone forever.

  Then he had pondered another line of thought. Why had God let this happen? What of Carol’s strong faith? What had it given her? Dan’s precarious faith in God was all but vanishing, as if now that Carol was dead, all bets with God were off. The way Dan saw it, God had let him down; therefore he would give up on God. After all, God had let him get into this situation. He would get himself out of it.

  And so Dan was not entirely pleased when Sergeant Goldberg visited him that April afternoon. Still, even with his newfound paranoia, Dan never suspected that his buddy Goldberg was secretly tape-recording everything that was about to be said that afternoon.

  “Hey, Dan,” Goldberg said quietly, sitting down in the chair next to Dan’s bed. “Sorry to hear about your wife.”

  Dan nodded uncertainly, casting a questioning look toward the sergeant beside him.

  “How are you doing?” Goldberg leaned a little closer. The tape recorder he was wearing would do no good if it couldn’t pick up Dan’s side of the conversation.

  “Not very good,” Dan said. “Not good at all.” He shook his head slowly. “They think I did it. I know they do.”

  “Did what?”

  “Come on, Goldberg. I wasn’t born yesterday. Your guys think I killed my wife. They did this gunshot residue test on me, they’re still camping out at my house. By now they probably know about my background.”

  The conversation was getting interesting. Goldberg strained a bit closer to Dan. “So, you have a record. Lots of people have a record, Dan. That doesn’t make you a killer.”

  “Look, Sarge, I’ve been through the system. I’m really scared they’ll use that stuff against me.” Dan wiped a few drops of sweat off his forehead.

  “Hey, if you didn’t have anything to do with Carol’s death, don’t worry about it.”

  “Of course I didn’t have nothing to do with it.” Dan began to raise his voice and Goldberg slid back in his seat. The recorder would have no trouble picking up this conversation. “Would I be in here with a hole in my side if I had anything to do with it?”

  “You’re worrying about nothing, Dan. It’s not like you had a million in life insurance on her,” Goldberg said. He was baiting the man lying in the hospital bed, looking for a diamond in a mine.

  Dan released a shaky sigh and covered his face with his hands. “They probably know about that by now, too.”

  Goldberg moved closer again. “About what?”

  “The insurance. Carol was a big believer in insurance.”

  “There was life insurance on Carol?”

  “Four or five policies, I think,” Dan said, his voice fading as he spoke.

  “Must have been small policies,” Goldberg said. “What were they, ten thousand each?”

  Again Dan sighed, and a few seconds later when he looked up, Goldberg thought he looked much paler. “No. Might have been five hundred, six hundred thousand. Something like that.”

  Goldberg’s eyes widened. Lynch was going to throw a party when he heard this. “That’s more than half a million dollars, Dan.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m worried.”

  “I can see why. That kind of insurance money makes a pretty strong case for motive.”

  Dan shook his head angrily. “That’s not fair! Carol wanted that insurance because of my bad health. She was worried I would wind up on the streets if anything ever happened to her.”

  “Six hundred thousand dollars, Dan?” Goldberg asked, incredulously.

  “Yes. Does that make me a killer? Because my wife was concerned about me?”

  “Doesn’t make you a killer, Dan. Doesn’t look real good either.”

  “Look, she knew about my gambling and all. Carol was worried that if she wasn’t around I might not be able to pay back my debts. She wanted to help me, even if she wasn’t here.” Dan began massaging his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

  Goldberg’s eyes grew still wider. “Gambling debts?”

  Dan looked up in surprise. “You didn’t know?” he said, rolling his eyes. “You would have soon enough. I gambled a bit. Used to do real well, brought in a pretty steady income that way. Then, I don’t know, maybe a year ago I hit a bad spell. Lost a little and decided to quit for a while.”

  “How much is a little?”

  “Twenty thousand, maybe a little more.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars?” This time Goldberg tried to hide the amazement in his voice.

  “Yeah. Sounds like a lot. But in Vegas it’s not so much. People run up that kind of debt all the time.”

  “You owe Vegas more than twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Carol was insured for more than half a million dollars?”

  Dan’s shoulders slumped forward and he ran his fingers through his slicked-back hair. “See why I’m worried?” Dan turned toward Goldberg and suddenly his eyes looked less like those of a weasel and more like those of an abandoned puppy about to be hit by a car. “Listen, Sarge. I didn’t kill my wife. Doesn’t matter about the gambling and the insurance. I didn’t do it. Carol was everything to me. Everything.”

  Goldberg nodded, stand
ing up and extending his hand to shake Dan’s. “Well, I don’t blame you for being worried. I’d be worried, too.”

  “That’s why I want to get out of here. I have to get home, straighten all this out before it’s too late and they arrest me or something.” There was an awkward moment of silence before Dan spoke again. “Hey, Sarge, I’m pretty scared. What should I do?”

  “I’m no legal expert,” Goldberg said before he left Dan’s room that afternoon. “But I think if I were you I might be getting myself an attorney about now.”

  As he walked down the hallway, Goldberg had no doubts about whether Lynch and the others would find the conversation interesting. Of course the police already knew about Dan’s criminal background. But Goldberg figured Carol’s half million in life insurance and Dan’s gambling debts would give investigators more than enough to begin building a case on. Goldberg waited until he was out of the hospital before reaching up under his shirt and switching the recorder off.

  That same afternoon, while Sergeant Goldberg was chatting with Dan, Los Angeles County field evidence technician Phil Teramoto was busy in the crime laboratory. The day’s work had been long and tedious and now, at nearly four o’clock, Teramoto had just one more test to complete—the gunshot residue swab test taken on Dan Montecalvo. The purpose of this test was to determine whether there were lead spiral particles on Dan’s hands immediately after his wife’s murder.

  These particles typically appear on the hands of someone who has fired a gun, providing the person did not wear gloves. After the bullet has been released by the firearm, a residue of lead particles sprays backward onto the hand. There are other reasons a person might have lead particles on his or her hands. A person who has been shot, for instance, might touch the gunshot wound and at the same time pick up lead particles. Or a person might pick up the particles working in a lead factory.

  Two samples are always collected for gunshot residue tests. First, cotton swab sticks are swiped across the person’s hands. Next, a second test is performed using the sticky surface of small disc-like pieces of paper, which are also designed to pick up the particles.

  Tests are usually only completed on the swab sticks. The process is inexpensive and less time consuming than the highly technical disc test. The drawback is that the swab test is also less accurate.

  A negative result on a swab test means only that no lead particles have been detected during the chemical process. But if there were even one or two lone spirals of lead, this process might overlook them. This is not often a problem because the purpose of the test is to determine whether the person fired a gun, not whether they touched a gunshot wound or worked with lead. Gunshot residue usually contained hundreds of lead spirals, an amount that would certainly be discovered by a swab test.

  There are occasions, albeit seldom, when an attorney or an investigating police officer requests the second test, which would determine absolutely the presence or absence of lead particles.

  Detective Lynch had asked Teramoto to call him with the test results. Lynch had a strong suspicion that the test would be positive. If it was, they would have their first piece of physical evidence linking Dan to Carol’s murder.

  Teramoto checked his watch and began walking toward the testing room. The results would be readable by now. He picked up the test marked “Montecalvo—GSR swab test” and stared at the swabs under a microscope.

  The process of reading the test took only a few seconds and when he was finished, Teramoto took a pen out of his lab coat pocket. He picked up the form attached to the test, filled in the section set aside for test results, and picked up the lab telephone.

  “Detective Lynch?”

  “Yeah, this is him,” Lynch said absently. He was still waiting for Goldberg to return from his hospital visit with Dan.

  “It’s Teramoto over at the county crime lab.”

  Lynch sat up straighter in his chair. “What do we have?”

  “Not much. The test was negative.”

  Chapter 11

  Dan Montecalvo officially became the primary suspect in the murder of his wife on April 6. This was the result not of what police found, but what they did not find during their five-day investigation at the Montecalvo home. After examining each piece of evidence and every police report, Lynch determined that there simply was not enough reason to believe a burglary had taken place.

  This was his determination despite the slit screen door, the empty cash box, and the unidentified footprints found on the kitchen floor—all of which had been ample evidence of a burglary only a few days before. In light of learning about Dan’s criminal past, Lynch figured the slit in the screen had probably been caused by normal wear and tear. For that matter, Dan had probably taken the missing cash, and perhaps a repairman had left the footprints in the kitchen. Simply put, by April 6 those details were no longer meaningful in the eyes of Detective Lynch. Once that was the case, the Burbank Police Department was able to focus its investigation entirely on Dan.

  Had Dan known that his status had changed from being a possible suspect to being the only suspect he would not have been surprised. By then, Dan was frantic. For whatever reason, he felt that it was outrageous for the police to take five days searching his house.

  That same morning, only hours after police had finished their investigation of his home, Dan was granted permission to temporarily check out of the hospital. Carol still had not been buried and Dan needed to make arrangements for her body to be sent back east for burial in the Tronconi family plot. The head nurse had agreed to allow Dan to leave on the condition that he return by that afternoon. Doctors wanted Dan to spend at least another two days in the hospital. As soon as he received permission to leave, Dan called Pastor Wil Strong.

  “Wil, I need a favor,” Dan said, his voice shaky and distressed.

  “Whatever you need, Dan.”

  Several days earlier, Pastor Strong had learned that police were focusing their investigation on Dan. Strong had always thought of himself as a reasonable man, and that meant being open to the idea that anything was possible. He had long since stopped believing that because people were Christians they were incapable of evil—even something as evil as murder. Strong believed that as long as Satan was alive and well on planet Earth, he would try to worm his way into the hearts and souls of all people, including Christians.

  Strong had spent many hours in the past few days considering the possibility that Dan might have killed Carol. But despite keeping an open mind, Strong was completely certain that Dan could never have done such a thing. Dan might have been a drunkard, he might have gambled too often and with too much money, but the pastor was positive about one thing—Dan worshipped his wife. Certainly there had been times when Strong wondered if Dan truly loved Carol. But in the pastor’s experience, a person could worship someone without really loving them.

  Carol had spent hours talking with Strong, sharing with him the problems she refused to mention in front of anyone but him and Cathy Hines. Yet even when Carol was distressed about Dan, she would constantly mention how much her husband needed her.

  “I feel like I’m letting him down, like I can’t do anything to reach him anymore,” Carol would complain softly. “He needs my help, but the alcohol is killing him.”

  Pastor Strong would listen kindly, advising Carol to continue praying for Dan and to try to persuade him to enter an alcoholism treatment program.

  From years of counseling Carol, and occasionally Dan, the pastor was convinced of certain things. First, Dan seemed to be dependent on his wife and to view their marriage as the single redeeming factor in his life. She had given him her time, her money, and her entire life by going against her family’s wishes and marrying him. Then she had devoted herself to his rehabilitation and conversion. This may not have won her Dan’s undying kindness. But he would forever be indebted to her. Strong believed that Dan kept Carol on a pedestal and even credited her with saving his life.

  The more
Pastor Strong thought about the situation, the more he believed that Dan was incapable of killing Carol. If Dan had been having financial difficulties, he would have known dozens of ways—most of them illegal—to put his hands on money. In fact, immediately after Carol’s murder Strong had been given approval by the elders in their church congregation to loan Dan several thousand dollars until he could get back on his feet. Strong believed Dan would sooner have robbed another bank, or hijacked an armored truck, before he could have aimed a gun at Carol and killed her.

  And if those weren’t enough reasons to believe in Dan’s innocence, there were also the logistics of the crime. Strong did not believe that anyone with Dan’s criminal knowledge would shoot himself in the side or back. There were too many lethal routes a bullet might take. No, Dan could not have killed Carol.

  Regardless of what direction the investigation would take in the weeks and years to come, the pastor calmly and completely maintained his opinion. He was so convinced of Dan’s innocence that when Dan called him that April morning from his hospital room, he did not hesitate to offer his assistance.

  “How can I help?” Pastor Strong stood up from his desk and looked out his church office window, silently praying for Dan’s healing, as he had done many times since Carol’s murder.

  “They gave me a temporary leave, gotta take care of a few things.” Dan paused and Strong thought the man might be on the verge of breaking down. Dan drew in a deep breath. “Need to get Carol home, get her body sent back to New York so they can bury her.”

  “I understand.” The pastor’s voice was calm and reassuring. “How can we help?”

  “I need someone to go by the house and get a couple of Carol’s dresses. A green dress and a blue one, in the back bedroom, right side of the far closet. Could you do that for me, Wil?”

  Strong could only imagine how difficult this ordeal must be for Dan—having to take care of his wife’s funeral and burial plans from his hospital bed. “Sure, Dan. I’ll have it taken care of.”