The Dead Daughter

by Thomas Fincham

“I hope she has a warrant,” the owner replied.

  “I don’t need one,” Fisher said. “I just saw that your liquor license expired a week ago.”

  “I’m going to get it renewed.”

  “But it’s not renewed today. I’m sure I can contact the Alcohol Beverage Control Agency and have them come and shut down this place until you get a new license.”

  “You won’t do that,” the owner said, hoping she was bluffing.

  “Just watch me.”

  Fisher pulled out her cell phone.

  The owner put his hands up. “Okay, okay, what do you want?”

  “Show us the security footage, and I’ll ignore ever seeing your expired license. But you have to get a new license as soon as possible, and by that, I mean tomorrow.”

  “Got it. No problem.”

  He took them to his office in the basement. The room was small, and with a desk and chair, the room looked even more congested. The owner pointed to a computer monitor. “All the cameras get relayed to this screen. What do you want to see?”

  Callaway gave him the time and date.

  The owner punched it in, and the image changed. They watched as customers and waiters moved around the dining area. Callaway kept an eye on the clock at the bottom of the screen.

  Whenever a woman entered the restaurant, his heart would swell with hope. When he saw it was not Kyla, his hope would vaporize in an instant.

  After almost half an hour, he realized Kyla had never come into the restaurant.

  Fisher turned to him, “You got any other bright ideas?”

  He was shocked. Kyla had not only tagged herself being at this location, she had also taken a photo of herself in front of the restaurant and had posted it on her page.

  “Wait,” he said. “Can you show me the footage from the camera on the front of the restaurant?”

  “Sure, whatever,” the owner replied.

  The image on the screen switched. They watched as customers moved in and out of the restaurant. Cars drove by on the road, and people walked past.

  Callaway’s back arched when a woman appeared on the screen. It was Kyla! She was on the other side of the road, across from the restaurant. She stopped in front of a bar and then proceeded to take a photo of herself. Her back was to the restaurant, which explained why her phone had caught the restaurant’s name.

  She went inside the bar.

  “We need to go check out their security footage,” Callaway said to Fisher.

  “They are closed right now,” the owner said. “They don’t open until after 4 P.M. But they stay open ‘til early in the morning.”

  Callaway rubbed his chin. He was contemplating his next step. “Can we see more of the footage?”

  “Sure,” the owner said with a slight shrug.

  Callaway watched the screen with intense focus. If his hunch was right, he would see someone soon. Close to ten minutes later, a man walked up to the bar. Callaway recognized him. The man looked around and then went inside the bar.

  Almost half an hour later, Kyla came through the front doors again. The man was right behind her as she stormed away.

  They both disappeared from view.

  Callaway could only imagine what happened next, because only a few hours later, she was found dead.

  EIGHTY-SIX

  “It’s Dr. Richard Lester,” Callaway said. “He killed Kyla Gardener.”

  They were in an interview room at the Milton Police Department. Callaway sat across from Holt. Fisher was standing by the wall. She refused to betray her partner. If they were going to do anything, she was not going to do it alone.

  They had shown Holt the footage from the bar. In it, Kyla entered the bar and took a seat in the corner. She waited until Lester showed up. He ordered a bottle for himself and a glass of water for her.

  For close to half an hour, Kyla and Lester got into a heated argument. There was no audio in the footage, but they could tell whenever she raised her voice. Her arms would flail wildly, and he would try to calm her down by holding her hand. It would work for a little bit until she would go off on him again. Finally, she got up and stormed out of the bar. He followed right behind her.

  “Outrageous!” Holt bellowed, shaking his head. “If this is your way of trying to save your client, then you’re too late. Paul Gardener is going to trial, and he’s going to die in prison.”

  “Paul’s a good man,” Callaway countered. “Probably the only innocent person in this entire mess.”

  “I don’t buy it. Plus, that video doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It shows Kyla was last seen with her uncle.”

  “So what?” Holt snapped. “Do you have video of her getting in the same car as him?”

  Callaway opened his mouth but then shut it.

  “Exactly,” Holt said. “We don’t know what happened after the end of the video. What if she went home right after that and her father saw her and attacked her?”

  “Look at the time stamp on the video,” Callaway said. “It’s almost an hour before Paul got home. I should know. I was at the Gardener residence on a stakeout. I can tell you that no one was home at that time. Not Kyla. Not Sharon. Not even Paul.”

  “Okay, how long is the drive from the bar to the Gardeners’ home?” Holt asked.

  Callaway looked at Fisher. She pulled out her cell phone and did a search. She frowned. “It’s about a twenty-minute drive.”

  Holt smiled. “That’s enough time to get there before Gardener and his wife made it home.”

  It was Callaway’s turn to smile. “I was there way before that, and I can tell you the house was empty. I have photos to prove this.”

  “Your photos have done enough damage, so no thanks,” Holt grumbled. “You’re wasting my time. I’m not interested in conjectures and theories. All evidence points to Gardener, and that’s who I’m going after.”

  He stood up to leave.

  Fisher said, “Greg.”

  He stopped. Fisher only called him by his first name when it was important. “Just hear him out. Please,” she said.

  He stared at her and sat back down.

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Callaway said, “There is a reason why Paul doesn’t remember anything from that night.” He slid the toxicology report across the table.

  Holt read it and looked up. “Rohypnol and chloroform?”

  “Yes.”

  Holt’s face creased. “Who’s Gator Peckerwood?”

  “Ignore that,” Callaway said. “But I guarantee the test results are from Paul’s blood.”

  Holt waved the report in the air. “This is inadmissible in court. It doesn’t even have your client’s name on it.”

  “You can go right now and get a blood sample from Paul. There are still traces of the drugs in his body. It will confirm what that report says.”

  Holt paused, thinking. “Okay, let’s say I believe you. How did Rohypnol and chloroform get in him?”

  “I made a phone call to Lester’s clinic and I acted like I was calling from the medical supply company. I asked them to confirm if they had ordered a bottle of chloroform. It’s nearly impossible to get it on the market, but it’s still accessible to doctors, and some still carry it in their office. His secretary was surprised when I asked her, but when she checked her records, it showed Lester had put in a request for a bottle the day after Kyla’s murder.”

  Holt’s brow furrowed. “So what does that prove?”

  “It proves he had taken a bottle from his clinic for personal use and then ordered another the next day to replenish the inventory.”

  “He could have used it on a patient and run out.”

  “Why not have his secretary order more? She does it on a regular basis. I believe Lester didn’t want her knowing he had taken a bottle.”

  Holt leaned back in his chair and crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Still doesn’t answer my question as to how Gardener got these drugs in his system.”

  “Let me explain. Most doctors p
refer to use ether for anaesthesia, but it takes longer to knock out a person. Chloroform is volatile, but it’s quicker to put someone under. So, I believe it became the go-to choice for Lester. If you go to his clinic, in his office, you’ll see artifacts from all the trips he has taken abroad, most predominately to African countries. I did a quick internet search and found out Lester has been to Uganda multiple times on humanitarian missions. In war-ravaged areas, his services as a plastic surgeon are invaluable. Women are raped and disfigured. He can make them look normal again.”

  “What’s your point?” Holt asked impatiently.

  “In Uganda, it is very easy to buy chloroform on the streets. Criminals spray chloroform through windows and ventilators in order to sedate the occupants inside a house. They then break into the house and rob them, or worse, rape them in some cases.”

  Holt’s face was hard. Callaway was not sure if he believed him or not.

  Callaway added, “I visited the Gardner residence, and I took a photo of the window in the guesthouse where Paul was found asleep.” Callaway pulled out his cell phone and showed it to Holt. “You can see the window is slightly open. I only noticed it because of a cool breeze that was coming through it. If you scroll to the next photo, you’ll see a boot print next to the window. It’s not enough to get a shoe size, but it confirms someone was at that window. I believe it belongs to Lester, from when he released chloroform into the room, knocking Paul unconscious.”

  Holt frowned. “I assume you broke into the guesthouse?”

  “Well, I don’t have a warrant like you guys, do I?”

  “Again, inadmissible in court.”

  Callaway ignored the last comment and continued. “And as far as Rohypnol is concerned, Lester’s a doctor. He has access to a variety of drugs. It was used so Paul did not remember anything from that night.”

  “Why?”

  “So he could set him up for Kyla’s murder.”

  “I still don’t buy it.”

  Callaway pulled out a photo and laid it on the table. It was a close-up of Kyla’s face. “This is what triggered it for me. In the photo, you can see clearly that Kyla’s lips are swollen. There’s even a cut on the upper lip. They could have only ended up like that from being struck by something, most presumably, a hand. When I initially met Lester at my office, I noticed a bandage on his hand, but later, when I asked him about it, he said he must have clumsily cut his hand.” Callaway paused. “It’s an odd thing to say for a plastic surgeon. Their entire career relies on what they can do with their hands. For that reason, they take extra care of them. And if you check the photos of the arrest, Paul has no cuts or bruises anywhere on his body, specifically his hands.”

  Callaway could see Holt was mulling this over. He saw his chance to win him over.

  EIGHTY-EIGHT

  “Dr. Richard Lester is the father of Kyla’s unborn child,” Callaway said.

  “What?” Holt was beside himself. “Do you have conclusive evidence of this, or are you merely making false accusations to prove your point?”

  “I don’t have any evidence, but just look at the footage from the bar. You can see Lester ordered a bottle of alcohol for himself but only ordered a glass of water for Kyla. He lied to me when I asked him if he knew Kyla was pregnant. He always knew because she had told him.”

  Holt still did not look convinced.

  “Listen,” Callaway said. “In the video, you can see them arguing. I bet she was telling him her intention to keep the baby and also that she wanted him to marry her. It was the reason she’d had the fight with Paul on the morning of her death. Paul had no idea she was pregnant, but he was against her getting married because he thought she was too young. On her social media page, she had mentioned she would be making a big announcement soon. I think she meant telling the world of the baby and her desire to get married. She was going to do that after she had spoken to Lester. His reaction, although muted when compared to hers, explained that he was against this. She then stormed out, and he followed her.

  “I think later, it could even be right after that video, he hit her in a fit of rage. The bandage on his hand and the cut on her lip confirms this. She might have even lashed out at him at this point, and fearing what he had done, he strangled her. This was supported by the medical examiner’s report. He then had to get rid of the body, but he couldn’t dump her just anywhere. The patrons at the bar had seen him arguing with her. He needed a scapegoat, and it was Paul. He drove her body back to her house and then he proceeded to sedate Paul with chloroform and Rohypnol. He then placed her body in the bedroom and proceeded to stab her, even after she was already dead.”

  “Why would he do that?” Holt asked.

  “He needed to link Paul to the crime. He then wiped the blood on Paul’s golf shirt—you remember that there was only a streak of red and not a splatter. It could have only come from a knife being wiped clean on a piece of cloth. He then placed the knife in Paul’s hand to get his fingerprints on it, then he placed it in the glove compartment of the Audi. If you also remember, the tip of the knife was clean while the rest of the blade was covered in blood. I believe Lester held the knife from the tip so as to retain Kyla’s blood and Paul’s fingerprints on it.”

  Holt held up his hand to stop him. “If what you say is true, how did he manage to do all this without Sharon Gardener finding out?”

  “She was not at home at that time, remember?” Callaway said. “She was having a tryst with Kenny Goldman.”

  Holt saw the connection. “But how did he know she would not be home?”

  “The apartment she met Goldman at is registered to Lester.”

  Holt’s eyes widened. “It is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on,” Holt said.

  “Also, when Lester came to my office to buy the photos from that night, he wasn’t doing it to protect his sister, he was doing it to protect himself. He did not expect that Paul had hired a private investigator, and he feared he might show up in the photos. He had nothing to worry about because I was in another part of the city, tailing his sister.”

  Callaway could see he had Holt. He was analyzing all the information Callaway had presented to him. As a detective, he could not ignore how things were now falling into place. The narrative made more sense than the one Holt had created.

  He finally said, “Even if I believed everything you just said, you still broke a lot of rules in getting this information, Callaway.”

  “I did,” Callaway agreed.

  “It means I can’t take this to the DA. The evidence won’t hold up in court.”

  Callaway held out his cell phone for him. It had a photo of Kyla. “This was taken by her outside the bar. That’s how we knew where she was when we saw the restaurant in the background. If you look at the photo carefully, you’ll notice Kyla is wearing a heart-shaped pendant. Her ex-boyfriend, Jay Buchwald, had given it to her, and for some reason, she continued to wear it.”

  Callaway then slid to Holt a Polaroid of Kyla lying in her bed. “This was taken when she was found dead. You’ll notice she is wearing the same clothes, but the pendant is missing.”

  Fisher chimed in, “I went through the box of evidence and saw our guys tagged no pendant from the victim”

  Callaway said, “We find the pendant, we find the killer.”

  Holt stared at him. “And how are you going to do that?”

  “I have an idea,” Callaway replied.

  EIGHTY-NINE

  Dr. Richard Lester examined the patient closely. The woman was the wife of a media magnate. She was in her late forties, and he could see that she already had too much work done on her. The dozens of injections over the years to fade the wrinkles had frozen her face into a permanent scowl. She looked more like a hideous wax doll than a living, breathing human being.

  She should stop and let nature take its course, he thought, but the quest for youth was beyond rationale. People got old, and their body aged with it as part of the cycle of life.

/>   But Lester would not reason with her, nor would he talk her out of it. She did not need additional procedures, but she was worth a lot of money, and he would bill her accordingly.

  “I would recommend we inject the lips, soften the wrinkles, and tighten the skin under the chin,” he said.

  She tried to smile, but it was futile. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Great,” he replied. “Why don’t you talk to my secretary at the front desk, and let’s see if we can’t squeeze you in as soon as possible.” In reality, his schedule was empty. His clinic was hemorrhaging money. It once thrived to the point where he had to turn people away. Even working twelve-hour days was not enough to meet the demand. But after the Great Recession of 2008, people had begun to reign in their spending.

  There was a misconception that only the rich and wealthy got work done on their bodies. If that was the case, most plastic surgeons would be out of business. There were only so many affluent people in the city, and not all were shallow enough to spend thousands of dollars to be young again. It was the average person—the people off the street—who were his best clients. A mother looking to get rid of extra flab around her waist after her second or third child. A teenage girl who wants her nose to look like a certain pop singer’s convinces her parents that she needs the procedure. A young man who thinks all men should be hairless, thanks to TV ads, comes in for laser hair removal. All these services, even if he personally was not involved in them, helped bring money into the clinic. This allowed him to focus on the well-off clients. He would cater to all their needs. He would visit their homes at all times of the day. He would drive to a party in the middle of the night if they needed a quick touch-up. He had even flown across the country so that they could look good for a presentation. He would charge a bundle for these personal calls.

  Now things were a little different. He had to cut his staff by half, and those who were still employed worked part-time.

  The woman thanked him and left his office.

  He was reaching for his cell phone, in case there was an urgent call, when his secretary knocked on the door. “Dr. Lester, there are some people here to see you,” she said.