Murder Across The Ocean

by Charlene Wexler

  Ignoring Jordan and turning to Inspector Holmes, Sanders asked, “Do you agree?”

  “What’s in the boxes?” Tuttle asked, before Holmes could respond.

  Holmes got up and walked over to the table. “Forensics released everything they found in Wheeler’s suite. I thought we could look through it again to make sure we haven’t missed any clues. As we discussed, there were no fingerprints that could not be accounted for.”

  The men went over to the boxes. They each put on rubber gloves and looked through the evidence once more.

  Tuttle shrugged as he went through Wheeler’s wallet. “Funny, no money or photos were found on the man, just credit cards.”

  “Nobody uses cash anymore,” Sanders answered. “Try giving one of the cashiers a pound, and they won’t know how to make change.”

  “You are wrong, Milton,” Jordan said. “There was no money in his wallet, but he had eight thousand pounds hidden in his carry-on. That Wheeler really knew how to live. Thousand-dollar handmade suits, diamond rings, Rolex diamond watch. Even his casual clothes ran in the hundreds. How did this get in the box?” Jordan asked, examining a plain wooden button.

  “How do you know the price of his clothes?” Sanders asked as he pushed his rimless glasses down from his forehead.

  “By the labels,” Jordan responded flatly, putting the button back in the box. “You forget, I work in D.C. where the U.S. politicians live.”

  Jordan then spread the crime scene photos to both ends of the table. He pointed to a photograph of Wheeler’s face, disfigured by the gunshot.

  “Face shots are usually personal, where the killer wants to get even with the victim. Roland claims to be a hired killer. In all the people we’ve questioned, did anyone claim to know Josh Wheeler personally?”

  “What Roland did to Suzi looked pretty up close and personal,” Sanders offered.

  “Fucking psychopath,” Tuttle growled.

  “So you are saying you wouldn’t put it past Roland, a hired killer, to just walk up to Wheeler and shoot him in the face?” asked Jordan.

  “The way that guy went off all half-cocked? Maybe Wheeler called him a name or swore at him. Jesus, anything would set off that bastard,” Reginald Tuttle offered.

  “I don’t put it past him…past him, either,” Milton Sanders said. “Look at what he did to Arthur and Richard. Close range. Head shots. That…that looked…personal.”

  “Okay, so this is your professional assessment of the suspect?” Jordan asked, sipping his coffee.

  “Yes, it’s my bloody professional assessment, Gould,” spat Milton. “Look. Obviously, the murder of our men has upset me, which is only natural, but I am looking objectively at his behavior.”

  “And you, Reggie?” Holmes asked Tuttle.

  Reginald Tuttle looked at Jordan, then at Milton, then at Geoffrey before speaking.

  “After spending some time with the suspect, I have to say he does bear the markings of a sociopath, taking pleasure in his predatory killings as well as his attitude of making a sport out of killing. Those are my professional observations. So, yes, I do not think the idea of Roland walking straight into Wheeler’s room and shooting him point blank is at all far-fetched. All we have to do is prove he did it.”

  “Or prove that he didn’t do it,” offered Jordan, who was met with such malevolent looks from both Milton and Reginald that he was caught off guard. Nonplussed, Jordan decided to move ahead, hoping things would settle down if he continued his train of thought. “Now, as I was saying, we have not come up with anyone who knew Wheeler personally, besides Lori Brill and Suzi Wu. I’ve had passenger flight lists checked against his investors, and girlfriends checked, and came up with zero.”

  “Interesting, Jordan. Can you get us a list of any British investors?” Holmes asked.

  Jordan answered, “I’ll have a list of everyone in your office in an hour.”

  “Everything here belongs to Wheeler or the hotel,” Sanders said. “What about Mrs. Brill’s things?”

  “We went through everything when we brought her things back here, then gave everything back to her. The only thing in question is her suitcase. The hotel guard went into Wheeler’s room before any of us got there. He brought the case to Mrs. Sweeney, who occupied the suite next door to the crime scene. She removed some clothes and gave them to Mrs. Brill, then the guard returned the suitcase to Wheeler’s room. By the time we went through it, Sweeney’s fingerprints were on it along with those of Mrs. Brill and the hotel guard.”

  “Are you saying our department botched it?” Sanders asked, bristling.

  Holmes touched his chin, thinking for a moment before answering. “No, I don’t think so. We should have been called right away so we could seal the room, but we weren’t.”

  Gould pulled a piece of paper with phone numbers out of Wheeler’s wallet. “Has anyone checked these? They may bring us closer to the money.”

  “Scotland Yard’s main job is to solve a murder, and I thought we did. The money belongs to Chinese and American investors. Let them look for it,” Sanders answered smugly.

  Holmes felt compelled to, once again, admonish the group. “Everyone, stop bickering and sit down. We know Roland killed Bly and…our men, and he may be up for Suzi Wu’s murder as well if the girl doesn’t pull through, but we still are not sure about Wheeler. We need more evidence, since Roland is not talking—well, he’s certainly not giving us any more information about Wheeler. I think we should re-interview everyone who was on the twenty-first floor of the Palace as well as the help. Everyone should be shown a picture of Roland. We will meet back here Monday morning at nine. Meanwhile, I have a blasted news conference. Come with me, Jordan."

  Holmes walked out of the meeting room, exasperated. This case was a hard one to crack. Wheeler, an infamous American with no London ties, left Scotland Yard with no informers to contact. That is why Holmes was allowing Gould, the American, so much freedom. As chief inspector of the M.I.T., the international press was pressuring Holmes, and he needed someone else to share the spotlight.

  The main part of the station was filled with reporters. You could hear whispers and loud chatter. The inflection of sounds represented the Brits, plus several international news people. Coffee cups were either held in hand or floating around every empty counter. Once Holmes entered the room all heads turned towards him.

  "Tell us about this Roland guy." “He killed everyone. Why?" “Who hired him?” "What is the connection with the Brill woman?" “Can we question her?” "What did Roland do with Wheeler's money?” “How did a big ape like Roland get to Wheeler and the two constables?"

  Holmes, with Jordan at his side, calmly gave the press-limited answers. He explained that he needed to make sure nothing was said that could endanger the case.

  Jordan was upset. Obviously everyone wanted to believe Roland killed Wheeler. They wanted to see this monster who had gunned down their colleges, plus the chauffeur, fry over and over, but something was bothering him about it. Roland said he threw the gun in the Thames, which made things much harder. It could take forever to retrieve it.

  He had learned from his training at the FBI that if something bothers you about someone else’s investigation, check it out yourself. Instead of going back to his hotel room after the news conference, he headed by taxi towards central London and the Palace Hotel. He entered the lobby and went straight up to the twenty-first floor. He stood outside of the still-sealed suite, removed the yellow tape, and stuck the key in the door. Instead of opening, an alarm went off, and hotel security was upon him in less than four minutes.

  “Damn it,” he said as the guards approached and he raised his hands. It took a few minutes, a phone call to Holmes, and a check of his badge before he was allowed into the crime site.

  Inside, Jordan verified that the bathroom where Lori was taking a shower was on the right and just a few feet from the entrance. If someone came in that door, wouldn’t Lori have heard it? Jordan spent fifteen more minutes checking th
e room for another entrance. He looked out the window. There was no ledge out the window of the twenty-first floor.

  Outside the room, he approached the hotel guard and asked him, “We were told there are no connecting rooms on this floor. Is that true?”

  The guard nodded, answering, “These rooms used to connect to each other, but after the remodeling two years ago, the connection was no longer accessible.”

  Jordan saw no extra door in the room, so he assumed the access door had been removed and a false wall put in its place. He walked around the room, knocking at intervals on the walls and listening for that distinct hollow sound of a false wall. Finding none, Jordan then moved to the large closet located on the wall opposite the bathroom.

  Nearly covering the length of the wall, the closet was large enough for three or four people to stand in comfortably, about eight and a half feet in height, and about seven feet in length. Perfect for visitors staying for a long length of time. He thought it odd that Josh would choose this suite, as it was, really, only for the purpose of the one-night stand he would enjoy with Lori. Josh wanted to impress his high school sweetheart, that was certain. Jordan walked about the closet, inspecting the walls. His knocks were met with the solid thuds of sound, solid construction. Above his head sat a long shelf, probably where people placed their shoes or luggage. He wiggled the shelf; it did not give.

  Moving toward the farthest, most remote corner of the closet, he got down on his hands and knees and found, next to a few small down feathers, a metal button, the kind a policeman or possibly a hotel guard would have on his uniform. He ran his hands over the wall and realized that in this section, the wall was not connected at the seams. He had found the connecting door. The closet and its shelving had been built over this small door, making access near impossible, if not nearly undetectable. A sliding door with a flush handle recessed in the wood, one that would have been used to gain access to the adjoining room, had just been blocked by shelving and locked, not completely sealed off. He figured the hotel must have figured no one would be the wiser, not with this door being so obscured and forgotten at the remote corner of the closet.

  He didn’t have time or authority to investigate it further, but knew that the adjoining room had belonged to an elderly couple, a very unlikely pair of suspects. The small connecting door leading to their room was locked. Perhaps the perpetrator had snuck out of their room undetected. The compromised video, showing activity in the hallway, had not revealed any activity near or around the suite next door, nor had it shown anyone entering Wheeler’s suite from the hallway. He dropped the button into his pocket, locked up the room, and noticed, as he left with the hotel security guard, that his uniform did not have this particular type of button. He still had a hard time believing that Lori heard nothing when the bathroom and the entrance were practically on top of each other. He figured he had better put his thoughts of interviewing her again on the shelf after his confrontation with Cate.

  ***

  It wasn’t that easy gathering the other eight people who were on the suite wing of the twenty-first floor the day of the shooting. The Bristol couple volunteered to be interviewed again, but on the Internet using Skype. They thought they recognized Roland as someone who ran down the steps in the early morning. They talked and talked to Tuttle, revealing very little of interest.

  The two Italian men were unreachable. They had registered with false names, addresses, and phone numbers. They had paid with cash. Tuttle said he would pursue their identities, something that should have been done before they were allowed to leave, though he actually thought they were gay and trying to be discreet. Mrs. Putnam was burying her husband, so they left her alone until a later date; she’d had very little to say in her initial interview. Mrs. Sweeney, on the other hand, talked on and on about poor Lori, and Mr. Sweeney spoke about the chaos in the halls after Lori began screaming. The police had never received a statement from Mr. Putnam beyond the fact that he’d slept through the whole thing. Too bad; before he retired he had been a hotel guard in London and in Manchester. If he had been awake he may have noticed something the others missed. The laundry boy said he recognized the man in the paper, thought he saw him in the hotel the day before the murder. So far, the hotel video was no help except that the man or woman in it was tall and broad shouldered, which matched Roland’s description somewhat.

  Monday morning, the investigators were back at the station to report their findings.

  Milton Sanders, Holmes, and Gould sat in the large meeting room of the station. On the table were a stack of newspapers from England, the USA, and several other countries. The headlines all carried a version of Josh Wheeler’s killer being captured and reported that Mrs. Brill was safe. Reginald Tuttle entered the room with the mail; letters from the prime minister and the president of the United States congratulated them on solving the case.

  Holmes, with his everlasting cup of tea in his hand, pulled one paper out of the pile. Its headline read: Killer Found, Money Still Missing.

  “Yes,” replied Jordan. “The world is happy, but I’m not sure this case is solved.”

  Sanders leaned forward from his seated position at the large desk and pulled his eyeglasses to his forehead. “Jordan, you’re never happy. Roland, from jail, called the press and strutted around his cell, bragging about how he had done the bastard in. The murder case now belongs to the prosecutors, not the police.”

  Jordan read over Roland’s confession. He looked at the others in the room.

  “I’m still not sure he actually murdered Wheeler. He knows he’s a dead man for Bly and our men, so he might be seeking publicity with Wheeler, and his story of Wheeler’s murder has many holes in it. To start with, he denied murdering Wheeler, but confessed to Bly’s murder and Suzi’s rape and the murder of our fellow officers. Why would he go in with the intention of killing Wheeler? He’d never get the code that way.”

  Jordan wanted to insist that they continue looking for the real murderer, but he had learned through trial and error that he must curb his feeling that he was always right. The murder trial was now under the prosecutor’s jurisdiction.

  “Once that Suzi comes to, we’ll know the answer,” Sanders said as he plunged his hands into his pants pockets, fidgeting with some coins. Everyone knew that the longer Suzi was in a coma, the less her chances of recovering.

  Holmes said, “Roland is getting his publicity. Two of the top criminal lawyers are offering free service to him. He has confessed. I've given a statement to the press. The Prime minister has congratulated us, and the entire world is watching. My superiors have told me that our job is done. Thank you all."

  Jordan was a very determined person, one who hated to be turned from his quest, but at this time in his career, he was subject to the will of his superiors. He walked over to the window, watching the steady raindrops falling against the small plate glass window. Justice, one way or another, was being served.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I have been called back to the States. I leave in a few days. They want me to work on finding the money from home. But I found…I mean, I think someone here should pursue the strong possibility that the connecting doors between rooms at the Palace were not completely sealed off, just boarded up and—”

  “How many times do we need to go over it?” Sanders asked in disgust. Nerves were still on edge because of the death of their two men. “Roland is guilty. He’s a sociopath. He doesn’t need motive. Beside’s, he’s confessed. Let him rot in jail for what he’s done!”

  Holmes raised his eyebrows and stroked his chin, ignoring Sanders’ outburst. “Definitely something to look into. That would explain why no one saw or heard anyone come into the room, or leave it.”

  “But he was seen on that floor!” Sanders exclaimed.

  "Must I repeat, it is over, out of our department. Roland Kiefer has confessed to all four murders, and will be tried accordingly." Holmes emphasized his words with a determined look, thus ending the co
nversation.

  Reginald Tuttle looked up from his papers and gave a sigh of relief. He turned towards Jordan. “It’s been an experience working with you. I still cannot understand how so many Yanks fell for Wheeler’s Ponzi scheme. If one was to believe your newspapers and Internet, it seems many people gave him their life savings.”

  Jordan smiled. “Those kinds of schemes have been around for years, and people in every country have fallen for them, way before Charles Ponzi started swindling investors. But closer to home, isn’t one of your elected officials being investigated for walking off with a considerable amount of money?”

  Holmes quickly walked over to Jordan and stuck out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, old chap. Let us know about the money recovery. Come back and visit.”

  Sanders and Tuttle stepped forward and shook Jordan’s hand, the former more hesitantly than the latter.

  Jordan gathered his things and was walking out of the station when Geoffrey Holmes stopped him.

  “Give me half an hour to tidy up some things, and then let’s go over to the pub for a farewell dinner.”

  Chapter 22

  When Lori was up and around and the doctors were making plans to transfer her to a rehab facility, Cate's parents started talking about going home. On one of those nights when Cate and her parents were visiting Lori, Joseph showed up. He was very gracious to her parents, not letting on about the rift in their relationship, and Cate appreciated that; after all, hadn’t there been enough drama lately? Cate jumped at Joseph’s suggestion to take her parents to London’s modern Swiss Re Building—also fondly known as the Gherkin—at 30 St. Mary Axe, as they hadn’t had a night out in all the time they had been in London. Lord Lunt had a membership to the private dining restaurant on the thirty-eighth floor, so Joseph had no trouble making a reservation. The plan was to dine there, and then bring the folks up to the fortieth floor for drinks and a magnificent, panoramic view of the city of London through the domed glass overhead, known as the Lens.