“Hey, it’s okay. We needed an excuse to get out anyway.”
“I’m really sorry guys. I feel like a total idiot.”
“Hey Bartoni, you are an idiot but we love you anyway,” one of the women on the team said.
I took solace in the fact that it wasn’t one of the guys saying that.
“Thanks for coming. Sorry about this,” I said.
They were walking out when one of them stopped and looked up at the fire sprinkler.
“Hey guys, look at this,” he said, pointing up.
They all gathered around looking up.
“What?”
“It’s a different kind and different color than the others. Get that chair,” he said.
They brought a kitchen chair over and he climbed up and examined it carefully. He took out a pocket tool and worked on it a few minutes and then pulled out a flexible tube.
“I’ll be damned. A camera. You were on the TV. Someone knew you came in here and switched on the camera. It was probably attached to the television and you just happened to turn it on. You were watching yourself as they were watching you. I’ll be damned Bartoni, you aren’t crazy after all.”
“Ah heck, I knew it was there all along,” I said hooking my thumbs in my belt.
“Sure you did. The question is why were they watching you and from where?” one of them said.
“It had to be fairly close. It’s a short range transmitter that’s attached to the lens,” the guy on the chair said, pulling the rest of the unit out.
“Bag it. We will want to check it out,” one of them said.
“Gee, ya think?”
I didn’t expect them to get much off of it; so far the guy had been quite careful about leaving any fingerprints. Nevertheless, you can always get lucky. Right now I would settle for lucky.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
James Clayton Baron, Attorney at Law was indicated in gold leaf lettering by the sign on the door. Maybe he hadn’t made it to Madison Avenue like he had originally planned but he was doing alright. He had a large mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue on a few doors down from the Governors’ Mansion. He was in the high rent district and enjoyed flaunting his success.
He was eating breakfast with his wife, Emily, and watching the morning news when a bulletin flickered across the bottom of the screen. He nearly dropped his cup of coffee when Andrew Kramer’s picture appeared. He jumped up from the table and grabbed the remote to turn up the volume.
“James, what in the world?”
“Be quiet Emily, this is important,” he snapped at her.
“Andrew Kramer’s identity has now been confirmed by the police as one of the two victims found murdered at the posh River View Condominiums here in downtown Indianapolis. Mr. Kramer was murdered sometime late last night. His murder is believed to be connected to two other murders that have taken place within the last two weeks. So far police have not been able to determine just what the link is but they indicated that they are working on a solid tie-in. Back to you Kim,” the reporter said.
“Liz, have the police mentioned any suspects yet?”
“I asked them that earlier and Detective Bartoni would only say that they have some leads and were in the process of following up on them. She did not indicate what the leads might be.”
“Thank you Liz. And now we go to John with the latest on that big snow storm headed our way….”
“Do you know that man, James?” Emily asked when he turned off the television.
“Yes. He was a client of mine. I represented him in several cases. He retained me for special occasions,” he said sitting back down.
He was pale and his hands were shaking.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“No Emily, I am most certainly not alright. He was one of my biggest clients. I billed close to two hundred thousand on him alone last year.”
“Oh dear. Does he owe you money right now?”
He didn’t bother to answer her. That was Emily, he thought. She could care less if he was dead or alive as long as she got her hands on the money. With her, everything was about money. He wondered if he should go to the police but decided he would wait and see what developed. Chances are they would come to him anyway.
* * *
“What the hell are you doing boy?”
“Nothing dad.”
“Nothing? What are you reading then?”
“A part for a play.”
“Play? What kind of play?”
“A real famous one dad. It’s by Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. I got a part in it at school.”
“Like hell you did.”
“I did. I tried out and got a part in the play. It ain’t a real big one but I get to say some lines.”
“You gonna be some faggot in a sissy play boy?”
“No dad. This is a real famous play. Everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet.”
“I don’t know nothing about no queer stuff like that. You’re a Goddamn sissy queer ain’t ya boy?”
“No dad. Please. I just wanted to do something different. To be accepted at school. I never have any friends.”
“Ah, that’s breakin’ my heart. You make me sick you putrid faggot,” he said knocking the play book out of the boy’s hand.
He tried to grab it but the old man kicked it across the room and then kicked the boy in the side while he was bent over.
“Stop it. Every time I want to do something you start beating on me. I ain’t going to take it anymore,”
“You ungrateful puke. I feed you. This is my house. Those are my clothes on that sissy ass body. Don’t you dare tell me what you are and aren’t gonna do boy,” he said backhanding the boy across the face.
It was more than he could stand. He kicked out and landed a foot on his father’s knee.
His dad roared, “I’ll kill you; you son of a bitch.”
The boy doubled up his fist and swung it with all of his strength. It caught his dad totally off guard, landing on his cheek and ear. His head snapped around and he stumbled back, tripping over a footstool. His feet went out from under him and he fell backwards. His head hit the corner of the dresser and he slid down to the floor. The boy, panting, stood there, looking down at the still figure. He waited to see if he was just trying to trick him but saw a pool of blood starting to creep out from under his dad’s head. He rushed over and knelt down. Oh my God. Oh my God. He was dead.
After he calmed down he packed up his few clothes, stole his old man’s stash of money, took off and never looked back. Except in his nightmares.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We were all sitting in the cramped conference room. Charlie Eller from CSI was there along with Doctor Sorenson from the Medical Examiner’s office, my team, and Captain McGregor. Sitting to McGregor’s left was the current focus of our attention. A middle aged woman, attractive, but not a knockout, was reading the case file. Our case file. That sent alarm bells off big time.
“This is Jean Dixon. Ms. Dixon is a FBI profiler. I asked her to consult on this case because frankly we don’t have much to go on right now and I was hoping she could give us some insight,” McGregor said.
He saw us look at each other.
“What about Marsha? She usually works with us,” I asked.
“She wasn’t available, and hold on before you get your shorts all in a knot, if I didn’t ask for some help, the Commissioner was going to have me turn the whole ball of wax over to the Special Crimes Unit of the FBI and we would be relegated to a backup role. I figured this was the lesser of the two evils. No offence Ms. Dixon,” the Captain said.
“None taken. I understand the politics,” she said without looking up.
“Anyway, that’s where we stand. What I want to do at this meeting is go around and make sure we all have access to the same information. I don’t want anyone holding back anything. Understood?” the Captain said, looking at each of us in turn. He was wasting his time with me and he knew it. I would share what I thought was importa
nt but some things I would keep to myself.
“Doctor Sorenson, what’s the latest from the ME’s office?”
The doctor opened his notepad and started reading. “Each of the three victims was killed in a different way but some similarities exist. Each was killed slowly. Each victim had a note with a quotation from William Shakespeare placed in the mouth cavity with the exception of Kramer. The notes were predictors of how the next victim would be killed or so it seems. The latest victim, Andrew Kramer, had a note enclosed in a plastic vial that was placed in his rectum. The note indicated the next victim would possibly be a lawyer. It mentioned a skull as well. How that fits in I have no idea. By the way, there was a fourth victim, Oscar Pyle, the doorman. He was killed with what appears to be the same type of sword. He was ‘run through’ as they say.”
“A sword?” Ms. Dixon said, looking up.
“That is correct. A rapier to be more precise.”
“Interesting.”
“I thought so,” the doctor replied.
“How did Andrew Kramer die?”
“Drowning.”
“In an aquarium?”
“That is correct. It was a very large aquarium.”
“Someone would have to be very strong to accomplish that wouldn’t they?”
“I found a contusion on the back of his head. I would surmise that his attacker used hilt of the sword to strike him in the back of the head and then stuck his face in the water and held it there. The actual cause of death was drowning.”
“Thank you doctor,” she said and went back to reading.
“Dan?” McGregor said.
“Where to start? First, the Farley guy. We didn’t get squat from that particular crime scene. The snow covered just about everything. He had no markings on his body except for the stabbings. We found no rope marks or anything to indicate that he had been bound. He had obviously been dumped there because there was not nearly enough blood at the scene. The stab locations were meant to cause pain more than anything. The ones in the knees severed the ligaments, same for the elbows.
We got even less from the Linda Evans crime scene. The snow was so deep we couldn’t even find the ground without shoveling. The bag around her head was from a garment and could have come from any of a thousand stores or cleaners. We have sent it off to the FBI lab but don’t expect to get anything off of it. The rope was also common. You can buy it at almost any hardware store in town. It is carried at Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, Menard’s, 64 Lumber, and on and on. We even found it in a couple of grocery stores. It is one of the most common types on the market.”
“What about the last murder?” McGregor asked.
“That one is different. The door had been kicked. We got a partial footprint off of it. Size ten or ten and a half. Couldn’t tell what kind of shoe because it didn’t leave a tread pattern. Kramer’s clothes were folded and placed on a chair nice and neat. I doubt that he took the time to do it. We didn’t find any blood on the floor or walls and it doesn’t appear that anything was out of place,” I told him, “Whoever it was came in with one thing in mind. Killing Kramer and that was all. He either forced him to undress or knocked him out and then undressed him and stuck his upper torso in the aquarium. From the amount of water on the floor I have to agree with the doc, he was knocked out when his head was placed under water,” I said.
“Tell them about the camera,” he prompted.
“Yeah. You talk about strange. We found a big safe behind a picture. It held cash, a couple of guns, stocks, bonds and a book that had a number of coded pages, ledgers, land deeds and jewelry. It’s all being tagged and I’ll have it in holding by this afternoon. Anyway, we sweep the entire place and it comes up clean. Nothing, nada. Then the next day Bartoni decides to take a look around and in the process she turns on the TV and voila she sees herself. She calls my boys and they scoot down there but they find nothing. We think Bartoni has gone around the bend. I mean, that’s not a real stretch is it?”
“No,” McGregor, Dan, and Eric all agree in unison.
“Hey,” I said.
“So, we are just ready to leave when one of the guys notices a sprinkler head and sure enough they find a SRC-41 Transmitter Camera stuck in the damn thing. Someone had been watching the apartment. Thing is, it wasn’t there the day before. My guys are absolutely one hundred percent sure. So why, who, and how did they put it there?” Charlie said.
“Couldn’t you find out where they were watching from?” McGregor asked.
“We could have if they had been watching but they must have turned it off when they heard Bartoni call us to come sweep the place. Damndest thing.”
“What about the camera? Can you trace it back to the owner?” he asked.
“They sell it in three places in the city and three hundred places on the internet not to mention e-Bay. We already checked the city. No one has bought one in the past three months but we are going back further just in case.”
Dan filled us in on how, on the surface, Mr. Farley looked like just your typical good old businessman trying to make an honest living but was in fact a cut throat that would as soon put you out of business as look at you. He had a lot of enemies and the list was growing the more he dug into Farley’s business dealings.
We were able to track down the person Farley was going to see about the infamous Pappenheimier Rapier. It was guy named Icerman. His alibi checks out and is solid. Mrs. Farley has made a positive ID and the body had been sent to Greenwood for burial. Eric was going to do a follow up visit with Mrs. Farley once she had a chance to recover somewhat.
My report was much the same. I brought them all up to speed on the double life of Mrs. Linda Evans. It brought to question how she could keep all of this from Mr. Evans in such a small community. Were they in on it together and was there still more to be uncovered. It was hard to get those answers in such a close knit community but I was intent on digging.
I was sure that if I could get a thread to unravel, the whole thing would come apart in short order. I had the feeling that people knew a lot more than they were letting on. I just needed to get to the right source.
“What about Kramer?” McGregor asked.
“We all know about Kramer. He is a like a high price call girl. He is in everybody’s pants and can get away with just about anything he wants. He knows the right people and drops money in the right places. They don’t care how dirty it is. He has screwed so many people that we would have to rent the Colts Lucas Oil Stadium to hold the questioning in if we wanted to talk to everyone at once. The guy was no good,” I informed him, taking a swig of Diet Coke.
“Whoever killed him probably made a lot of people happy. All three of these have a common thread. All three were greedy and were getting rich off other people’s money. Somehow our perp knew that and decided to do something about it. Why now? Why these three? Hell, there are hundreds of scumbags like these three. Why did he pick them? We have to find the link. He is not done. The last note tells us that. We have a lawyer someplace who is about to get the same treatment. The problem is what lawyer isn’t getting rich off other people’s misfortunes? We would have to cover every lawyer in the city,” I said.
“World,” Dan corrected.
“Universe,” McGregor added.
I was getting the feeling these guys didn’t exactly have warm fuzzies for attorneys. Still, we couldn’t let someone just go around whacking them for the fun of it. The real problem was that we had no way of knowing who the intended victim was.
“Eric, see if you can find out if Linda Evans had a lawyer. Dan you do the same. I’m sure he had to have one stashed away someplace. Maybe his wife knows. I’ll see about Kramer. Maybe it’s one of those. If we can get it down to two or three, we could handle that,” I said.
“It could be some other schmuck just as easily,” Dan said.
“It could, but it’s a start.”
“What do you think?” McGregor said to Ms. Dixon.
I had forgotten she was even th
ere.
“I think everyone has some very good points. I agree that the three are related in some fashion. I think this person was somehow taken advantage of by these people and he is exacting his revenge. Why? I think he snapped. I think something happened that caused him to lose his ability to keep his emotions in check and he has lost control. He is educated, actually very well educated, probably post graduate. He will be articulate and very self-assured. The clues are intended as a taunt. You are not on his level. He is telling you how his is going to kill them and even who but you are too dim witted to get it. He likes this part of the game. If I had to guess I’d say that he was terribly abused as a child and this is his chance to be superior, to show that he can do something right. He really is quite insane,” she said.
“Well, that’s just dandy,” I said.
“He is going to keep on killing. The lawyer is probably linked like you said, but even when he runs out of people he hates, he will keep going. In his mind, everyone is out to hurt him so he has to keep killing.”
McGregor ran his fingers and thumb across the bridge of his nose. Eric was rubbing his temples and Dan was leaning back looking at the ceiling. Me? I was thinking about getting something to eat and another Diet Coke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Detective Bartoni,” Jean Dixon said as we all started out of the room.
“That would be me,” I said, holding out my hand.
She shook it and I was relieved to find it didn’t feel like a wet fish. It was strong and firm.
“You don’t like profilers much do you?”
“Can’t say I have much faith in them.”
“Why is that?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it but, frankly, they suck.”
“Yes. I would say that is a rather fine point. Okay, so they suck. What makes you say that?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly. I want to know.”
“Because they always give such general crap. He will be young, average height, nothing special, had a difficult childhood. Hell, that’s nearly everyone in America. Just once I would like for someone to say. The guy will have gray hair, brown eyes, a tattoo and limp. Something really useful. I just think profilers are way overrated. I have never had one actually help me nail the suspect.”
THE SHAKESPEARE MURDERS Page 7
