ALPHABET MURDERS - ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILES #1 (Detective Angie Bartoni Case Files)

by Marshall Huffman

  “We have a new National Forensic Odontology program and we have been trying to establish a data base much like facial recognition and fingerprints. It isn’t too far along yet but every time we have a chance we want to get the data logged in.”

  “Bite mark identification? That sounds kind of iffy to me. I mean, wouldn’t it depend on how quickly the impressions were taken? After all the skin starts to reform after a period of time,” I replied.

  “That’s essentially true but we need to start someplace. We are trying to set up protocols on how to handle bite marks. I doubt it would be significant enough evidence to get a conviction but it could help make a case stronger.”

  “Hey, if it works and makes our job easier I’m all for it.”

  “Good. We’ll get them out today. Oh, and one other thing. Mr. Tolbert has agreed to undergo hypnotism to see if he can recall anything about the logo or van.”

  “You’re putting me on. You really think that works?” Marcus asked.

  “Don’t know unless you try. It has worked a few times in the past so if he is willing, why not give it a shot?” Pendergrass replied.

  Marcus didn’t say anything verbally but the look on his face pretty much said it for him.

  “When does this take place?” I asked.

  I didn’t want to piss off Marcus but I was interested in seeing if it really would work. I personally don’t believe in hypnotism but hey, why not see what happens?

  “This afternoon at 3:30 p.m.. He is coming down to the station and Dr. Allen will try to hypnotize him.”

  Marcus mumbled something but fortunately it was low enough so no one could really hear what he said. The only word I made out was ‘dumbass’. Marcus could be such a poop at times.

  I-droid1, sorry, I mean, Agent Farling followed me as I went back to my desk.

  “Where do I find the castings?”

  “I’ll go get them from evidence.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  We took the elevator down to the basement. It seems like he was about to say something several times but never quite got it out. We went to the evidence room and I retrieved the box with the castings, signed the chain of evidence card and had Farling sign as well.

  “Ah..”

  “Yes?” I asked. Come on boy, spit it out.

  “Ah..would you like to split a pizza after work. I mean, not like a date, just kind of shoot the bull.”

  Wow, be still my heart. What a romantic. I didn’t say that exactly.

  Actually I said, “Sure. That would be great. I know where the best Chicago Style Pizza is. If you like that kind.”

  “Yeah. That would be great. You’ll have to drive. We only have the one car for the four of us and I’m sure they will want to take it back to the hotel.”

  “Not a problem. Just yell when you’re ready to go,” I said.

  “Maybe about 6:00 p.m. if that’s okay.”

  “Fine with me.”

  Wow, witty conversation. Hey, I don’t get asked out too often and when I do and they find out I carry a gun they usually only last the one date. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

  Marcus was smirking when I got back to my desk.

  “What?”

  “Did he finally get up the nerve to ask you out?”

  “You are so far off base. He needed the castings to send to the FBI lab. Nothing more.”

  “So what time is he picking you up?”

  “Marcus, if it was any of your business, he is not picking me up. We are not going on a date. End of story.”

  “Then why is he headed back this way?” Marcus asked.

  Of course I fell for it and turned to look. Farling was nowhere in sight. Marcus can be such a prick at times and this was definitely one of those times.

  Suddenly I felt bad. Here I was acting like a school girl and we were in the middle of trying to catch a monster before he killed another innocent little girl. I’m not sure who the bigger jerk is, Marcus or me.

  I realized it was almost 3:30 p.m. and Tolbert was due any time. If we could get anything from this it would be a hell of a lot more than we had. I put a dollar in the Coke machine, punched the Diet Coke button and out came my caffeine fix.

  “Tolbert’s here,” Pendergrass informed us.

  We all headed to the conference room but the Chief sent everyone away except for Aaron and me.

  We were introduced to Dr. Allen. I was glad Marcus wasn’t there or he would have said something about the way he looked. Huge thick glasses, comb over, potbellied with short stubby fingers. He kind of looked like a nearsighted troll. Geez, and I thought Marcus was bad.

  “Now I will need for everyone to be totally quiet. No one can get up or make any sudden movements. Anything that could break the incantation must be avoided at all costs. It is essential in order for this to be successful,” he told us, “I will slowly let him relax so he can focus his mind using hypnotic induction.”

  Sure, whatever that means.

  He had Jim Tolbert sit so they were facing each other in comfortable chairs. He told Tolbert to close his eyes for a few seconds before he had him open them. He had him focus on his gold ink pen while counting backwards from one hundred. Someplace around eighty-six he seemed to sag just a little and his eyes became dull.

  “I want you to think back to when you were driving home and you almost ran into a van. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing just before you saw the van, can you remember?”

  “Yes. I was looking at my cell phone, sending a text.”

  “And what happened next?’

  “I glanced up and saw this white van coming down the street. It was going much too fast to be able to stop.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A man. He had a baseball cap on and was looking straight ahead.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Ah..”

  “Take your time. What do you see?”

  “The van flashing past. My ABS locking and releasing the brakes.”

  “Jim, I want you to look at the van. Can you see it?”

  “Yes. It’s white.”

  “It has writing on the side. Can you see what it says?”

  “Compressor Repair.”

  “Compressor Repair?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else does it say?”

  “Industrial Air Compressor Service, LLC.”

  “What does the logo look like?”

  “I don’t recognize it. A large air compressor or something like it. It’s blue.”

  “A phone number.”

  “What do you see?”

  “853.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s all. The van is gone.”

  ***

  After Dr. Allen brought Tolbert out of the induced trance he couldn’t remember any of the details. I have to admit, I was impressed. I never for one minute thought we would get anything out of it.

  “Okay, we need to grab the yellow pages and see if we can find out where this place is. Detective Bartoni, would you start a computer search?”

  “On it,” I replied.

  “Good. We will be over to your desk in a couple of minutes to see what you can pull up.”

  I hurried to my desk, dodging Marcus and his ten thousand questions. I typed in Industrial Computer Services and got 68,300,000 hits in 30 seconds. I scanned them quickly and there it was. The third hit down.

  I went to the site and saw a big blue air compressor as their logo. Solutions for air management it said. The phone number was 853-6750. By the time I had it called up the rest of the team was standing around my desk reading the website.

  “I’ll be damned,” Marcus said.

  “Okay. Let’s take both cars. If you don’t mind, Detective Bartoni, I would like you to ride with us,” Pendergrass said and then stopped.

  “Sorry Detective Arron. This isn’t my call. I
just got excited.”

  “No problem. I understand completely. It’s fine. Bartoni can ride with you and we will lead. It shows the company located at 1232 Industrial Parkway. Vests on everyone, no exceptions.”

  A torrent of activity occurred as we all threw on vests, jackets and checked our weapons. The Chief wanted us to take at least one AR-15 per car but both Aaron and Pendergrass felt it wasn’t necessary. No use getting everyone at the company any more worked up. Having two cars full of agents and detectives would be more than enough to make them uneasy.

  We took the bypass to the north side and exited on Jackson. A right on Collins brought us to the Industrial Park. I was both excited and apprehensive. Could we be so lucky? It’s never this simple.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The building was just one long block with store front offices. We found Industrial Air Compressor Services. We split up. Marcus, Le Roy Gates, and Eric went around to the rear of the building where the bay doors were located. Pendergrass, Shores, Aaron, and I went into the office. The receptionist’s eyes got big when she saw the FBI jackets on Pendergrass and Shores.

  “Oh my, can I help you?” she stammered.

  “I certainly hope so. We would like to talk to whoever is in charge,” Aaron said.

  “Ah, that would be Mr. Richmond. He is in a meeting but I could go get him if it is important.”

  “That would be great. Please tell him we need to speak with him,” Aaron replied.

  Duh. If it’s important. Four law enforcement officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns. Ya think it might be important? I don’t know why I get like that but dumb questions always set me off.

  A few moments later a tall, rugged looking man in blue work clothes came into the front office.

  “I’m Thomas Richmond. We got a problem?”

  “Mr. Richmond. These are Agents Shores and Detectives Aaron and Bartoni. I’m Special Agent Pendergrass with the FBI. We need to speak to you in private.”

  “Well we don’t have a fancy conference room. We have a break area but that’s about it.”

  “If we can all fit, that will be just fine.”

  He led us down a hall to a typical break room. Two tables, chairs, refrigerator, Coke machine and a candy bar selection. Coffee cups and a Mr. Coffee sat on the counter. A sign said to clean the coffee pot if you got the last cup. Like that would really happen.

  “Mr. Richmond, we understand you have white vans with a logo of a compressor on the side and Industrial Air Compressor Service, LLC. on the side.”

  “Yep. That would be ours. Why? What happened?”

  “How many trucks do you have?”

  “Nine. Well ten actually but one of the drivers backed into a pole and it’s in the body shop.”

  “How many drivers are assigned to each truck?”

  “Um...that depends. If it is an installation, we might send two or three trucks with two men in each one. If it’s just a parts delivery or a small job, usually one guy can handle it. Not always. Some parts weight several hundred pounds.”

  “For an air compressor?”

  “We do big compressors. Like really big. Some weigh several tons.”

  “How many people do you have working that might go out in one of your vans?”

  “Oh...probably twenty right now. There are six others here in the office, counting the receptionist.”

  “Okay. Do you have a schedule of where all your drivers were for the last week?”

  “On the computer. We keep a spreadsheet with the job, worker, parts, labor, billing and stuff like that.”

  “Excellent. We would like to get a printout of that.”

  “What is all this about? Why would you want that?”

  “We are just doing some preliminary work. There was an incident and one of your drivers may have witnessed it.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation so I can’t really say much about it.”

  “You can’t tell me what it’s about but it may have involved one of my people and you want a printout of the job schedule. Should I be calling our attorney?”

  “Why would you need to do that?”

  “Why would you not tell me what you wanted it for?” Richmond shot back.

  “Sir. We don’t want to be adversarial. The printout could save us a lot of time and that is very important to the case,” Pendergrass explained.

  “And from my perspective, you wanting to know where my people were is certainly concerning. I want to know what this is about,” he replied.

  “I can tell you this. It is a life threatening emergency and we have only a short time or someone could well die. We need that information. Please.”

  “And one of my people was involved?”

  “No sir, I didn’t say that or mean to imply it. This is just one avenue we are pursuing,” Aaron told him.

  “Okay, but this had better not come back to bite me on the butt.”

  “It won’t. I give you my word,” Aaron said.

  Whoa. It could very well come back to bite him if it turns out one of his people is involved. The civil lawsuit could land on him like a ton of bricks.

  A few minutes later he handed the schedule printout for the past week to Aaron. With any luck we would find something of value. Pendergrass suggested we wait in the back bay until the trucks came in and we could check the schedule in the meantime.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Mr. Richmond, can you tell us about Gil Martin and Evert Wilson?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How long they have been here. Their work record. Background check. That sort of thing,” Aaron asked.

  “Well, Martin has been with us for about four months and we haven’t had any problems. He seems to get along with everyone. Good work record.”

  “Did you do a background check on him?”

  “I checked his references if that’s what you mean.”

  “What about an I-9?”

  “I-9? What’s that?”

  “It’s required by law. It insures that the person is legally working in this country. You are required to do that on all employees. You haven’t been doing that?” Aaron said.

  “Uh...I guess not. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Okay, we can come back to that. What other background checks did you make? Personnel references?”

  “No. Just where he worked last. They said he was a good employee.”

  “I see. And what about Wilson?”

  “He started just after Martin. We have been really busy so I brought on a couple of more guys. And ‘no’ I didn’t do one of those I-9 things on him either.”

  “But his references checked out?”

  “Sort of. I mean the company he was working for previously went out of business so I couldn’t really check but he seems like a nice enough guy and really knows about industrial air handlers. That’s good enough for me,” Richmond said.

  “What time are they due in?”

  “Probably around five o’clock unless they run into a problem. They will call if that happens.”

  “Alright, and thank you.”

  “Am I in any trouble over the I-9 thing?”

  “Not with us but you need to get that taken care of immediately. You have to keep a record in their personnel file at all times.”

  “Crap. I’ll get right on it,”

  We sat and waited. Both Martin and Wilson had been near the street where Francisca Welch had been abducted.

  By five o’clock most of the trucks were in. We really didn’t care if we started with Martin or Wilson. Of course they were the last two to drag in. We had decided earlier that Pendergrass and I would take Martin and Aaron and Shores would tackle Wilson. The others would do a quick interview with the other drivers.

  ***

  “Mr. Martin I’m Special Agent Pendergrass with the FBI and this is Detective Bartoni. We would like to talk to you about your work schedule last week.”


  “Work schedule? Why would the FBI want to know about that?”

  “We just have a few questions if you don’t mind.”

  “Look, I just got off after working my butt off doing a cylinder re-sleeve and all I want to do is go home and have a beer or two.”

  “Are you married Mr. Martin?” I asked.

  “Separated.”

  “Any kids?”

  “Yeah, two girls. Why is any of this important? What do you want to know?”

  “Last Wednesday you were over on Tillison Street. The ten hundred block. What were you doing in that area? There are no industrial buildings in that area,” Pendergrass said.

  “North Tillison? I don’t remember being in that area. You must have the wrong person.”

  “I don’t think so. We have a witness that puts you there around 4:45 P.M. They were able to recognize the truck and wrote down the license number.”

  Shame on Special Agent Pendergrass. He was lying like a dog. Trying to shake the guy up. I’ve done it myself a few times but nothing this extreme.

  “Hey, someone’s screwed up big time. I wasn’t on North Tillison anytime last week. Someone got the tag number wrong,” Martin insisted.

  It was hard to tell if he was an accomplished liar or he was telling the truth. He had a job that took him within two blocks of the Welch residence.

  “You want to think about that some more? According to your job schedule you had a job over on Lancing. The Akron Dive Shop. You go within a couple of blocks of Tillison.”

  “So what? You asked if I was on Tillison. I wasn’t. What the hell are you trying to pull?” he said, his voice raising. He was getting pissed big time.

  “Easy Mr. Martin. We’re just trying to establish where you were around 4:40 on Wednesday. No one is accusing you of anything.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it to me. You’re trying to say I was someplace I wasn’t. That’s bullshit,” he said.

  His face was getting red. Anger management problems? I wondered how he was when a customer got to him.

  “Mr. Martin. We’re going to get a warrant to go through your truck. Now would be a good time to tell us if we are going to find something that would incriminate you,” Pendergrass said.