Behind the Closed Door: A Detective Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers (The Jacob Hayden Series Book 2)

by Charles Prandy

  “Just out of reach. It was almost like the suspects knew the range of the camera.”

  “And Mr. Fowles was shot twice in the chest?”

  Detective White nodded. “115 grain full metal jackets were pulled from his chest.”

  “From a nine millimeter handgun.”

  “That’s right.”

  I sat back in my chair and folded my arms over my chest. My mind started turning again. I was trying to hold back these irrational thoughts but they continued to float through.

  “Something on your mind, Detective?” Detective White asked.

  “Did you know that Gary had a twin brother?”

  Detective White’s eyes grew a little wider. “No, Mrs. Fowles never mentioned a brother. Especially not a twin.”

  “His name was Jack Smith. Gary was adopted by Susan Fowles when he was an infant. Gary never knew Jack and Jack never knew Gary.”

  “Why’d you say his name in past tense?”

  “Because Jack was murdered not long ago.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “He was shot twice in the chest.”

  “Jesus.”

  “We arrested his wife for the murder. We believe that she had an accomplice. But after she made bail, she ran. The last time we saw her was yesterday, just hours before she died from gunshot wounds and third degree burns.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you think this accomplice is the one who killed her?”

  “That’s what we think.”

  Now Detective White was the one lost in thought.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “We think that Jack Smith and his wife are connected to a bank robbery in Colorado and that may be why he was killed. We also think that Jack’s wife is connected to a couple of recent bank robberies in D.C.”

  “How were they committed?”

  “The robbers would kidnap the bank managers in the night and hold their families hostage while they took the bank managers to the bank to open the vault. Then they’d kill the bank managers and their families.”

  Detective White raised his eyebrows. Something appeared to be running through his mind at a hundred miles an hour.

  “Detective White?”

  “Come with me.” He immediately stood up and we left the conference room.

  He took us to another room similar to many police station rooms I’ve been in. The room was open and filled with desks. Phones were ringing. Cops were talking on them. He led us to his desk and he quickly sat down. He pulled up a page on his computer.

  “Hey Pete, what was the name of the cemetery guy who was killed a few months ago?”

  Another cop that had a desk nameplate, Detective Pete Reynolds, answered, “You mean…Marshall, Clifton Marshall.”

  “Right, right, Clifton Marshall.”

  “We never got anywhere on that, right?”

  “Nothing. Terrible what happened to that family.”

  “Family?” I asked.

  “Here it is,” Detective White said. He started reading from the screen. “Clifton Marshall and his fourteen-year-old son were found shot in the head a mile from the cemetery that he and his family owned. When we got to his house, we found his wife and teenage daughter dead too.”

  “My God.”

  “We couldn’t figure out why he and his family were targeted. They were nice people and pillars in the community. We checked his financial records and no recent withdrawals had been made. They have a safe in their office but it was untouched.”

  Detective White turned around in his chair.

  “But that’s not what got me freaked out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, his cemetery is the same one that Gary Fowles was buried in just a week before Clifton Marshall was killed.”

  Sixty-four

  “We need confirmation,” I said.

  “Confirmation of what?” Detective White asked.

  I paced in front of his desk. My mind felt like it was racing a hundred yard dash and in last place. This can’t be happening, I thought.

  “We need to know if Gary Fowles’ body is in the ground.”

  Pat looked at me sideways. I raised my hand telling her that it was okay. I wasn’t losing my mind. At least not yet.

  “You know as well as I do that without the parent’s consent, we’d need to get a court order and that could take days.”

  “Then I’d suggest putting on your best charm and convincing Mrs. Fowles to let us exhume the body.”

  “You gotta give me something, Hayden. Fifteen minutes ago I didn’t know you from Adam, and now you want me to exhume a victim’s body. Give me a good reason.”

  I stopped pacing. I finally allowed myself to say what I’ve been fighting to accept in my thoughts. I turned to Detective White. I’ve never been more serious in my life. “I think Jack Smith is still alive.”

  He blankly stared at me without responding. Maybe he was debating if he should have me thrown out for losing my mind. Maybe I was losing my mind, but the coincidences kept adding up.

  Then without saying a word, he picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  “Mrs. Fowles? This is Detective White from the Trenton P.D…I’m fine, thanks…I believe you were visited earlier today by Detectives Jacob Hayden and Patricia Jennings from Washington, D.C.? Yes, they’re actually here at the precinct standing in front of me…Yes, they’re investigating a string of murders and bank robberies in D.C…Well, the reason I’m calling, Detective Hayden informed me that Gary Fowles had a twin brother and said brother was killed a few weeks ago…Yes, it is tragic…Mrs. Fowles I’d like to get your permission to exhume Gary’s body for examination…Yes, well there may be an issue with Gary’s twin brother, Jack Smith and…Really…okay, thank you Mrs. Fowles.”

  Detective White hung up the phone.

  “It’s a go. She gave her blessing. She said that you two seemed like fine young detectives and that anything she could do to help she would.”

  Twenty minutes later we were standing over Gary Fowles’ grave site. A plaque in the ground read, “Gary Fowles, Beloved Son. March 13, 1973 to April 18, 2013.”

  A backhoe came from behind us. We moved back and the backhoe started digging up the earth. When the hole was dug, groundskeepers raised the coffin. I didn’t know what I wanted to see more, the body of Gary Fowles or an empty casket.

  “This is creepy,” Pat said.

  “I know. It doesn’t feel right disturbing the dead like this,” I responded.

  The groundskeepers unlatched the top of the coffin. The three of us moved in for a closer look.

  Detective White looked at Pat and I. “Ready?”

  That instant the only thing I thought about was the movie, Poltergeist, where the family finds out that their neighborhood was built on top of a cemetery. At the end of the movie, coffins start coming up through the ground and grotesque corpses spill out of the coffin. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see that, but I nodded to Detective White and said, “Yeah.”

  “It’s all yours fellas,” Detective White said to the groundskeepers.

  They slowly opened the coffin as if they were afraid of what was inside. We stepped closer. The inside of the casket was in full view. Detective White looked at me. I looked at Pat. Now everything made sense.

  Sixty-five

  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, but I tried to keep my feelings contained. Gary Fowles’ casket was empty which could only mean one thing. How could I be so lame? How could I have been played so easily? In that moment, I started to question my ten years of police experience.

  Detective White was on the phone with Mrs. Fowles again. I needed to find out if Gary had any identifying marks or tattoos on his body that could distinguish him from his brother.

  My face must have looked sunken because Pat came over and rubbed my shoulder.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. Nobody would have se
en this coming.”

  “We’ve been played from the get go,” I said. “That’s hard to accept.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed the medical examiner who did the autopsy on Jack Smith’s corpse. Tracey Spencer answered the phone on the third ring.

  “Tracey Spencer.”

  “Tracey, this is Detective Jacob Hayden.”

  “Hey Jacob. Haven’t heard from you in a little while. What can I do you for?”

  “The Jack Smith autopsy.”

  “Yeah, the decapitated body. What about it?”

  “Has it been moved yet?”

  “Of course. The wife had him cremated shortly after the autopsy.”

  I swore under my breath. “But you have pictures of the body before it was cremated?”

  “Of course. We photograph and take notes of every inch of the body before the autopsy.”

  “Great. Can you pull up the photos for me?”

  “Yeah, give me a sec.”

  I heard clicking from her computer. I looked over at Detective White and he mouthed “no tattoos.” He put the phone back to his ear and listened some more.

  “Okay, Jacob, they’re up. So what do you need?”

  “Hopefully a miracle.”

  “I’ve been known to produce those from time to time.”

  Detective White hung up. “Gary had right shoulder surgery when he was fifteen. He tore his rotator cuff pitching in baseball.”

  I spoke into the phone. “Is there evidence that the corpse had shoulder surgery?”

  There was silence for a moment. “Actually there is. I noted it in my report. There was a surgical scar on his right shoulder.”

  I closed my eyes. “You can tell the difference between a surgical scar and a cut he may have had?”

  “Of course. Surgical scars are usually are clean lines. They’re not rigid or crooked from a deep gash or cut.”

  I thanked her for her time and hung up.

  “Our body was Gary Fowles, not Jack Smith.”

  “That’s why he was decapitated and his fingers were removed,” Pat said. “So we couldn’t identify him through dental records or finger prints.”

  “What kind of a sick son of a bitch would do that to his own brother?” Detective White asked.

  “Someone more ruthless than I’ve ever seen.”

  “But what about embalming?” Pat asked. “Wouldn’t our ME have noticed that the corpse had been embalmed?”

  “It’s not a requirement,” I said.

  Detective White was already on the phone and confirmed that Gary Fowles was not embalmed.

  “So are we saying,” Detective White said, “that Jack Smith knew he had a brother. And that he killed his brother. And then after his brother was buried, he kidnapped the owners of the cemetery and had them dig up the corpse?”

  “Then,” Pat interjected, “once the corpse was dug up, he had them refill the lot. After that was done, he killed the parents and the kids.”

  I shook my head. “Then he and Erin put the body in the woods to be found by whoever walked by.”

  We all stayed quiet for a minute. Our brains were trying to soak in what we just rationalized.

  “Who would be the least likely suspect in a murder and bank robbery investigation?” I asked.

  “Someone who everyone thinks is already dead,” Detective White said.

  I shook my head again. “But there’s still something that I don’t get. If he planned this whole thing with Erin, why’d he kill her? He has the money. No one would ever suspect that he was involved. Why not just take her away into the sunset and never be seen again?”

  “Because he never planned for her to be with him in the end,” Pat said.

  “You think there’s someone else?”

  “There’s gotta be.”

  “Well, now we just opened a new can of worms.”

  Part Three

  Sixty-six

  One Month Later

  Secret Service Agent, Harry Smiles, stood to the left of the hotel room door at The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. Despite his last name, Agent Smiles almost never smiled. His partner, Ron Carpenter, stood on the other side of the door. They both wore black suits with white collared shirts and red ties. They started their shift thirty minutes ago, relieving the last two agents. There were Secret Service Agents on the immediate floors above and below, as well as agents on the hotel’s roof, in the lobby, and scattered around the outside of the hotel’s perimeter.

  Agents Smiles and Carpenter wore earpieces and heard check-ins from the other agents as clear as if they were standing next to them.

  “Skins will go deep into the playoffs this year,” Agent Smiles said. “RG3’s got them believing in something.”

  “I don’t know,” Agent Carpenter said, “you know how the league is. Defenses catch up in the off season. It’ll be hard for him to repeat what he did last year. They’ll be ready for him.”

  “Nah, the guy’s too smart. And Shanahan’s smart too. I think he’ll do exactly the same thing as last year. Got my boys tickets to the Cowboys game. Can’t wait to see RG3 shove it down their necks again.”

  “Won’t make any difference. The 49ers are going to take the NFC again.”

  Agent Smiles shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll see. If RG3 didn’t hurt his knee last year, the 49ers might not have made it to the Super Bowl. I’m just saying.”

  Agent Carpenter waived him off.

  The hallway fell silent again. They were the only ones occupying the whole floor.

  Agent Smiles blinked. He looked at his watch and saw that it was five past one in the morning. His head started to feel a little light and for a second he felt the room slightly spin.

  “How you feeling over there?” Agent Smiles asked.

  He looked over and saw Agent Carpenter shake his head.

  “A little light headed.”

  Agent Smiles sniffed the air. Nothing smelled out of the ordinary. He raised his right hand to his face and saw that his fingers were blurred. He took a step forward and nearly stumbled. He looked over at Agent Carpenter who appeared just as distraught as he was.

  His mind started to whirl. Shit, he thought. Something’s happening. Agent Smiles was about three inches taller than Agent Carpenter and about twenty-five pounds heavier.

  “Ron?”

  His voice sounded muted. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth.

  Agent Carpenter tried to keep himself up but staggered to the floor.

  Agent Smiles’ mind was foggy. He knew that he needed to do something, but it was hard to concentrate. Then he remembered. The microphone in his left palm. He needed to call the other agents for help.

  He raised his hand just as one of the vents on the ceiling fell down. Half of a body came out of the shaft. The person was wearing a gas mask. Agent Smiles’ vision was blurry, but he could tell by the size of the person that it was a large man.

  Agent Smiles’ eyes widened. He reached for his gun but his motor skills weren’t working correctly. His hand was on the gun’s handle but couldn’t pull it lose. He was about to speak into his hand and call for help when two bullets crashed into his head.

  Sixty-seven

  An Hour Earlier

  I had a suspect in handcuffs. No, it wasn’t Jack Smith. It wasn’t even the Jack Smith case. I had an African-American kid who was just eighteen years old in an interrogation room for suspicions of killing his girlfriend. Several witnesses saw them arguing in front of her apartment complex and then ten minutes later they heard a gunshot. The kid fled the scene and uniforms caught up with him an hour later. He didn’t have the gun on him, but he had traces of blood on his pants and shirt.

  I watched him through closed circuit TV It’s now early August and even though it’s eleven o’clock at night, it’s a balmy ninety degrees out. The kid was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and green camouflage cargo shorts. He slightly rocked back and forth and stuck his arms inside of his shirt.

  I was angry at the kid. He
hadn’t confessed yet, but I know he did it. Too many young African-American boys in D.C. have guns and foolishly use them. On the streets they think they’re bad. They brandish their weapons to show how tough they are. They think they have their peers’ respect. But once they get in here, they become cowards. They cry because they don’t want to go to jail. They’ve heard the horror stories of rapes and violence. Now this kid was more than likely going to be a statistic and it burned me up inside.

  I went back to my desk. I wanted the kid to wait a little longer and sweat it out. I could tell by his posture that he was nervous and scared. There’s enough circumstantial evidence for the D.A. to charge him with murder, but it’s always easier when you have a confession. Plus I wanted to calm down. I sometimes take it too personal when one of these kids messes up like this.

  I sat at my desk and read through some notes. Then I started thinking about Jack Smith. Once we confirmed that Jack Smith wasn’t the body we found decapitated, we put a national APB out for him with the most recent picture that Erin Smith gave us. Agent Davis was able to get him on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. We now believe that he was the one who masterminded the bank robberies and murders and then once he was done, he eliminated everyone associated with him, including his own wife.

  And that’s the part that’s nagging me the most. Pat thinks that there’s someone else involved, either knowing or unknowing. I wasn’t sure that I was totally buying it, but I had nothing else to go on. I let out a deep breath, shook my head and stood up. I’d have to think about Jack later. For now, I’ve got a confession to get.

  I stepped into the small interrogation room. The kid had his head down, but looked up when he heard me open the door. He had a baby face. Facial hair was barely growing over his upper lip. When I sat down across from him, he averted his eyes, a sign of immaturity and guilt.

  I was holding a file folder that had his information. A year earlier, he and two of his buddies were arrested for shoplifting. All three got six months’ probation and three weeks of community service. I knew his name but I wanted him to tell it to me.