Maddy worked her way through the bedroom with Tony giving her a running reminder on the time. She searched the dresser, the bed and opened the bedroom closet and began shining the light around thinking this might be how Traynor was getting out somehow.
“Oh, shit,” she heard Tony say. “Traynor just pulled up in front of the building. Get your ass out of there!”
Not one to panic, Maddy closed the closet door, looked around the bedroom to make sure it appeared in order then started toward the door.
“Jesus Christ, he’s running toward the front door. Are you out?”
“Almost,” Maddy answered him. She took a quick look around the living room then, satisfied, grabbed the satchel she had placed by the door and stepped into the hall. As she did a short stab of fear hit her when she heard Traynor’s footsteps pounding up the front stairs.
Maddy started walking quickly down the hall to the back stairway but realized she wouldn’t make it. Halfway there she came to a door on her right without an apartment number on it. She tried the handle and it opened. Maddy looked into the dark room, realized it was a janitor’s closet then stepped into it and quietly closed the door behind her seconds before Howie reached the top step.
She listened and could hear Howie unlocking his apartment door then closing it when he went in. All the while this was taking place, she had Tony Carvelli barking in her ear. Satisfied that Howie would not hear her, she finally answered Tony and told him where she was.
Less than a minute after entering his apartment, Maddy heard him come out and then heard his feet thumping down the stairs. While she listened, she felt along the wall by the door for a light switch. She found it and switched on the light.
“He’s coming out, I think,” Maddy told Tony. “Let me know.”
A few seconds later she heard Carvelli confirm that Traynor was out and headed back to his car. He was carrying something with him that he did not have when he went in.
“Must’ve forgotten something when he went to work,” Carvelli said. “Give it a couple minutes then…”
“Wait, I found something,” Maddy responded.
She had noticed what looked like a trap door with a handle on it in the ceiling. Maddy reached up for the handle and was just tall enough to grab it. She pulled down on it and when it opened several steps of a stairway opened up and unfolded.
“What the hell are you doing?” an anxious Carvelli asked.
“I think I found a stairway to the roof. I’ll go up and check it out,” she said as she started up the stairs.
When she reached the top there was another small trap door. She pushed it open and sunlight came streaming in causing her to blink several times.
“It’s the roof,” she said. “I’m going to check it out.”
Maddy went through the trap door and onto the roof. It was flat and covered with asphalt and gravel. While she walked around she gave Carvelli a running account of what she observed. She stood along the three foot wall that surrounded it and looked out over the neighborhood. The apartment building next door was eleven or twelve feet away and she wondered if Howie could jump it.
“Time’s up,” Carvelli said while she stared at the gap between the buildings. “Get out of there.”
“Yeah, okay,” she replied. It was when she turned to go back to the stairs she noticed a small pile of loose lumber. “Hey, there’s something here,” she said to Tony while moving a few of the boards. “It looks like there is a plank of some kind nailed together. It’s a pair of two by sixes put together and it looks long enough to reach the other building.
“Can you check it?”
Maddy tried to lift but could barely pick it up. “No,” she said. “It’s too heavy. I can lift it but not carry it over there. But I’ll bet Howie could.”
“Okay. Let’s check with Jefferson and tell him what we found. Get out, now.”
An hour later, Owen Jefferson entered the Lakeview Tavern in south Minneapolis. It was still mid-afternoon and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit bar. The booths were along the side to his left opposite the bar and he noticed Carvelli wave to him from one of them.
“Hey, Owen,” Maddy said as Jefferson sat down next to her.
Jefferson greeted the two of them then said, “Okay, what did you find.”
Carvelli let Madeline tell the detective what she did, admitting to at least one felony, and what she found. Before she could finish the bartender appeared and chatted with Tony and Jefferson. He brought the three of them soft drinks and when he left Madeline finished her story.
“What do you think?” Owen asked her. “Could he get up on the roof and get to the next building and get by our guys?”
“Yeah, it’s possible,” Maddy said. “Those two by six planks I found are probably strong enough to hold him. But they’re pretty heavy. I could lift them but no way could I carry them to the edge of the building and lay them across.”
“He could,” Tony said. “He was a strong guy and in prison there’s not much else to do but work out.”
“And he still does, at least four or five times a week,” Jefferson added.
“Then he has to walk across them three stories up to the next building,” Maddy said. “Not too many people could do that.”
“He could, “Tony said again. “He’s a burglar and a damn good one. I never met one that didn’t have nerves of steel and Howie was one of the best.”
“What about Parlow? Did he have an alibi?” Tony asked Jefferson.
“Yes,” Jefferson admitted. “At least one we can’t crack for now. We’re still looking at him and the other guy, Forsberg.”
“Now what?” Maddy asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jefferson said. “If the hair samples we took for testing come back as a match to Traynor, we should have enough for an arrest and a search warrant, especially with his history with Jimmy Oliver. We’ll have the test results within a day or two, probably tomorrow. Then I’ll go help with the search and find the ladder leading up to the roof.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Marcie Sterling would never admit it but she was feeling absolutely euphoric. Someone had leaked it to the media that an arrest was being made in the Crown of Thornes killer case. Marcie was in the lead followed by two male detectives and a male and female uniform cop with a handcuffed Howie Traynor in the middle. Marcie was wearing her best “I’m in charge” look as she marched down the crowded hallway toward the detective’s room. A small mob of both print and broadcast journalists jammed the hallway and Marcie charged directly through them. All the while the bright lights lit up the scene, the cameras recorded her and the reporters shouted the questions.
“I am innocent. I’m a patsy. I haven’t done anything,” was repeated over and over by Traynor.
Gabriella Shriqui squeezed through the crowd and fell into step beside Marcie. Gabriella asked several questions of her as they made their way down the hall, all of which were answered with a stern, “No comment”.
The entire scene would have been laughably ridiculous except for how serious the underlying crimes were. The best part, the one that would be played on air over and over and go national occurred as Marcie opened the squad room door.
One of the male detectives, tired of Traynor proclaiming his innocence, grabbed Howie by the arm and snarled, “Shut the fuck up you pond scum asshole.”
A week long suspension was in his immediate future. It would also teach him to control himself when the cameras were rolling.
The DNA results had come back from St. Paul as a positive match. They were exactly the same as the single hair found on Cara Meyers and a ninety-nine plus percent match to Howie Traynor.
This time, Steve Gondeck had better luck with the signing judge, a different one than the previous judge. An arrest and search warrant had been quickly issued and the MPD needed no motivation to move quickly.
Traynor had been arrested outside of his apartment building when he arrived home from work. Jefferson had in
tentionally waited until then not wanting to go into a church again. He also didn’t want a nosy priest interfering right away.
A very cooperative Howie Traynor was read his rights and acknowledged he understood them. He was shown and given a copy of both the arrest warrant and search warrant. The only comment he made was to politely say he wanted a lawyer. Marcie and her crew of cops then put him in a squad car and drove him downtown.
A half hour later, while watching the forensics team go through Howie’s apartment, Jefferson decided he had waited long enough. It was time for him to “discover” the janitor’s closet with the stairs to the roof.
He casually left Howie’s apartment and strolled down the hallway to the janitor’s closet. A minute later he was back getting one of the forensic team members to follow him up to the roof.
“What are we looking for?” the man asked.
“Not sure,” Jefferson said. “Something that might explain how he managed to get out and slip past our surveillance.”
In less than two minutes they found the twelve foot planks that had been nailed together. Whoever had done so had nailed four two by four boards crosswise on the underside of the longer boards. These were obviously to hold the large boards together. The two of them carried the plank to the edge of the building. They laid it across the space to the next building and it made a perfect walkway between the buildings.
“That doesn’t explain how he got out, Owen.”
“Yeah, it does. If he got over to the building next door, he could go out the back door. See those lilac bushes in back along the alley?” Jefferson continued pointing at the thick, leafy bushes behind the next building. “Our guys wouldn’t have seen him sneak out that way.”
“Pretty circumstantial,” the other cop said.
“It works, though.”
“Hey, Owen,” the two of them heard a man yell.
They turned and saw another cop with his head sticking up through the open trap door.
“You better get down here and see what we found.”
“Just a second, Paul,” Jefferson yelled back.
He turned back to the other searcher and said, “Scott, see if you can lift this plank by yourself and put it back.”
“Don’t let me fall,” Scott said as he grabbed the long boards with both hands. He struggled a bit and it wasn’t easy but he did manage to lift the plank up and bring it back. He put it back where they found it and said, “It’s not easy. The thing probably weighs one fifty to one sixty but it can be done.”
“Wait here, I’ll send someone up to take pictures,” Jefferson told him.
Jefferson went back down the stairs and into Howie’s apartment. He dispatched the photographer up to the roof then followed Paul Thornton into the bedroom.
“Sara found this,” Thornton said pointing out the objects lying on the bed.
“Holy shit. Now we gotcha you sonofabitch,” Jefferson quietly said as he leaned over to examine the items on the bed.
The three things lined up on Howie’s bed were what looked to be ten to twelve feet of coiled barbed wire, a pair of heavy wire cutters and thick leather work gloves. Without touching them, Jefferson carefully examined each.
“Where were they?” Jefferson asked.
“In between the mattress and box spring,” Sara said.
“Did you photograph them…?”
“Yes, as soon as I found them.”
“Great work,” Jefferson replied as he straightened up. “Bag’em, tag ‘em and get them to the lab ASAP. And Paul, there’s stuff on the roof to place into evidence. Scott will show you. I have to take off. Have Carly email me a photo of this stuff, right away,” he continued referring to the items on the bed.
There was a soft knock on Marc Kadella’s office door. Before he could respond, Carolyn opened it and seeing him on the phone, quietly told Marc that she needed to interrupt him.
“I have another call I have to take Uncle Larry,” Marc said as an excuse to end the call. He listened for a moment then replied, “Yes, I’ll deposit your check. Relax. I’m ready for your trial. I have to go.”
Marc hung up the phone, shook his head then looked at Carolyn who was suppressing a laugh and said, “What?”
“You need to come out and see this. It’s all over the news.”
He followed her into the office common area where he found a crowd gathered in front of the television.
“Check it out,” Barry Cline said to him, referring to the TV.
Marc peered between the shoulders of Barry and the office paralegal, Jeff Modell. On the screen was Gabriella Shirqui in a hallway at the police headquarters reporting the arrest of Howie Traynor. The entire office watched in silence for several minutes while an anchorwoman asked Gabriella a few questions, most of which Gabriella could not answer.
The TV went to a commercial and Sandy, the other full time legal secretary, hit the remote and shut it off.
The office landlord, Connie Mickleson was leaning against Carolyn’s desk. Marc looked at her and she asked, “You going downtown to see him?”
“I don’t know, I suppose,” Marc sighed. “I guess I’m his lawyer, at least for now.”
The office phone rang and Sandy answered it while the lawyers were discussing Marc’s obligation. Sandy spoke into the phone by saying, “I’ll see if he’s available.” She put the caller on hold, looked at Marc and said, “Guess who.”
“Is it him?” Marc asked.
“Yep. What do you want me to tell him?”
“I’ll take it,” Marc answered as he walked toward his office.
He left his door open so everyone could crowd in and listen. There wasn’t much conversation and it only lasted a minute or so. Marc ended it by saying, “Okay, Howie, I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Until then, don’t talk to anyone.”
He hung up the phone, looked at the faces crowding into his doorway and said, “Why do I get a bad feeling about this?”
Marc finished reading the copies of the search and arrest warrants that had been given to Howie. They both seemed to be in order and he placed them on the table. He was in a small attorney-client conference room at the jail alone with Howie. Marc reached in his inside suit coat pocket and removed a photo print Steve Gondeck had given him.
“What can you tell me about this?” Marc asked as he handed the photo to Howie.
Howie looked at it and with a puzzled expression said, “I don’t know. It looks like some kind of wire, wire cutters and gloves.”
“You’ve never seen them before?”
Howie looked at the photo again and said, “The gloves are mine, I think. They look like the ones I had at work. They’ve been missing for three or four days. Where were they?”
“The cops say they found them in your apartment between your bed’s mattress and box spring.”
“Then they put ‘em there,” Howie angrily replied. “Are they charging me with something?”
“Did you tell anyone your gloves were missing?” Marc asked ignoring his question.
“Sure, Father John. He gave me the money for a new pair. I bought them at the store I go to and they’re at the church.”
“Are you sure? Will he remember it?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. He should remember it,” Howie answered him.
“Okay, good,” Marc said. “I’ll check with the priest. To answer your question, yes, they’re charging you with second-degree murder for the death of your old partner, Jimmy Oliver,” Marc told him.
“I knew it. I knew as soon as it happened they’d try to lay it on me. Sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch…” Howie quietly replied with despondency in his voice.
He lowered his head and looked down at the table top. Only silence passed between the two men for almost a minute. Finally, Howie looked at Marc and said almost pleadingly, “I didn’t do this, Mr. Kadella.”
“Marc,” Marc corrected him.
“I didn’t do this, Marc,” Howie repeated more emphatically.
�
��Okay,” Marc replied. “What do you want from me?”
“Aren’t you my lawyer?”
“Not on this, I’m not. Is that what you want?”
“Well, yeah!”
“Relax,” Marc said holding up a hand to calm him. “We need to talk about this and get it straight, okay?”
“Okay, sure.”
“Do you have any money or any source of money?”
“Not really,” Howie said. “Do we need to talk about this now?”
“Yes, we do,” Marc said. “A case like this will consume me for months. I need to know I’ll get paid. I’m not a rich lawyer. Very, very few are. There are other lawyers around, a few who would be willing to take your case…”
“I don’t want one of them. I want you.”
“Okay,” Marc nodded. “I can take a lien against your lawsuit with the city. I’ll talk to your lawyer about that, Albright.”
“She already loaned me some money maybe she’ll loan me some more,” Howie said hopefully.
“We’ll see. For now, here’s the deal. I talked to the prosecutor who will try this case. He told me they’re taking this to a grand jury. I think they might want to charge you with some of the other so-called Crown of Thornes killings. We’ll see.
“Tomorrow or the next day they’re going to bring you to court for arraignment on the second-degree charge. Once the judge hears this is the Crown of Thornes case, you can forget bail. Until then, keep your mouth shut. Call Albright and talk to her about money. She was on TV last night promoting herself so I know she’s back in town. Sign this,” Marc said as he slid a two-page document and pen to him. “It’s a retainer agreement.”
Without bothering to look it over, Howie signed both pages and handed it and the pen back to Marc. Marc placed it in his briefcase, stood up and tapped his knuckles on the door.
“I have to take off. I have some things to get started on. I’ll tell the cops no one is to talk to you without me being present. Remember what I told you. Talk to no one, especially other inmates and call Glenda Albright. Don’t tell her anything either. Have her call me or I’ll call her tomorrow. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 160
