Fractures: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  She was wearing a white plastic suit over her puffy down coat. She looked up when she heard us. “Hi, guys,” she said, giving us a big, toothy smile. “You catch this one? I thought it was Pelton.”

  “It started out as Pelton’s, but I’m afraid it’s ours.”

  “Really? The old guy at the bar, with his fly down?”

  “Yeah, we think so.”

  “Cool.” Robin loved crime scenes. “Look at this.” She pointed to a paw print. Kirk Hendrickson’s remains had already been moved. “This kitty was a good hundred pounds.”

  “Just the one?”

  “I think so.”

  “You saw the vic’s body?”

  “The parts that were left.”

  “Really?”

  “Not an attractive look.”

  “You think the lion killed him?”

  “I’d say no. Lions attack by biting into the back of your skull. To break your neck. The vic was lying on his back. The back of his neck was intact. The front of his face and his hands were exposed.”

  “That’s what got chewed: the exposed parts?”

  “Yup.”

  “So you think he was dumped here, already dead?”

  “That’s what I think. If the lion had attacked him, the area would be more torn up. What I’m seeing is tracks showing the lion sniffing him out, chewing on him for a while, then leaving.”

  Ryan said, “Cats will scavenge?”

  “If they’re hungry enough.” Robin nodded. “Fact that the cat is here in town tells me maybe it was.”

  “The human footprints,” I said, “they’re the Fish and Game guys?”

  “Yeah, they just walked in, crushed the vegetation a little. One of them blew lunch.”

  “So, no weapon? No shell casings?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Thought I’d ask,” I said. “All right, thanks, Robin.”

  “No, thank you,” she said enthusiastically and turned back to her work.

  We left and drove back to headquarters, then went down to Harold’s lab in the basement.

  “Hey, Karen, Ryan.” Harold Breen looked up and greeted us as he heard our footsteps clicking on his tile floor. It was barely eight-thirty, yet he looked washed out for the day. “I appreciate the job security,” he said, “but I could’ve done without this young man.”

  “Yeah, we spoke to Robin.”

  “I’d stay over where you are if you want to sleep tonight,” he said. The body was on a steel table, covered with a sheet. “I’ve got a set of photos for you to take with you.”

  “Give them to Ryan, will you? He got enough of a face to ID him as Kirk Hendrickson?”

  “The height and weight on his driver’s license match, but no, we’re going to need dental records.”

  “Jesus Christ. Robin told us she didn’t think the lion killed him because they bite you on the base of your skull.”

  “That sounds plausible.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know anything about big cats. But I think she’s right. This gentleman was just a carcass when the lion came along.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I x-rayed him. Right side of his body, the leg had a compound fracture, the hip was shattered, the ribcage all busted up. And his trunk was full of blood.”

  “The lion didn’t do that?”

  “No, his clothing was intact. I think he died of a massive trauma. Like he was dropped onto a slab of concrete from ten or fifteen feet. Or maybe hit by a car.”

  “When do you think you’ll have a report?”

  Harold Breen lumbered over to his desk and picked up a clipboard. “I’ve got two ahead of you. I’ll try for the end of the day.”

  “Thanks, Harold,” I said. “Cheer up. It’s Friday, you know.”

  “I keep telling myself that.”

  Ryan and I left, went up to the detective’s bullpen, hung up our coats, and swung by the chief’s office. He invited us in, and we sat down.

  “Ryan and I haven’t had a chance to talk this through. We’re hoping you can help us.”

  The chief smiled sadly. “I used to be a cop.”

  “Harold thinks—actually, both Harold and Robin—that the vic was killed and dumped in the park. Harold said there were massive internal injuries, like he was hit by a car or dropped or something. The lion just came along and chewed him up a little.”

  “So who killed him?”

  I smiled. “Well, that’s what we’re going to figure out. Ryan, why would Lauren Wilcox kill him?”

  Ryan frowned. “If Kirk was her email friend, either he or she hacked Rossman Mining—”

  “Kirk was a computer-science major,” I said for the chief’s benefit. “It was him.”

  “Okay,” Ryan said. “It was him. They were trying to find out about some bad recordkeeping at the company.”

  “I asked you why she killed him,” I said.

  “They found out something was wrong at the company but disagreed on what to do about it.”

  “Could you be more vague?”

  “No.” He smiled. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  The chief said, “He found out she has a colorful past. She had to eliminate him.”

  “They conspired to kill Lee Rossman,” I said. Kirk was going to cut a deal, flip on her. She had to eliminate him.”

  “By the way, I put a lid on the case,” the chief said. “The tent over in the park—we’re just looking at paw prints.”

  “Good,” I said. “Should we be thinking about Florence Rossman?”

  The chief frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t really know. Just that her stepson gets beat up bad out at the rig. Kirk shows up dead, with massive internal trauma.”

  Ryan said, “Kirk didn’t get stomped. It’s a different kind of trauma.”

  “I realize that.” I thought for a second. “But it has a kind of symmetry to it. Like it might’ve been payback.”

  “You see Florence doing something like that?” The chief was wearing a skeptical expression. It was clear he really didn’t want to see her as a suspect.

  “It didn’t have to be her,” Ryan said. “She didn’t even have to know about it.”

  “Ron Eberly?” I said. “Explain why he did that.”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “She’s distraught about her stepson getting attacked, the poisons in the water. Ron can’t un-do it, but he knows Bill Rossman had this run-in with Kirk.”

  The chief said, “Maybe Eberly found out that Bill was collecting the dirty water and working with Nathan Kress to shut down the drilling operation. Eberly knows he’s out of a job if the operation shuts down.”

  “I like that better,” I said. “Eberly’s all about Eberly, not about doing something for Florence.”

  “Next?” the chief said.

  “My turn,” I said. “Cheryl Garrity. Kirk found out something from hacking the company. He threatened to give it to Lauren to publicize. Cheryl had to take him out before he contacted Lauren.”

  The chief was looking down at his desk. Ryan was tapping his stylus on the edge of his tablet. Neither spoke.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Did Cheryl kill Lee, too?” the chief said.

  I shook my head. “I’m seeing her killing Kirk because he’s threatening the company. I don’t know what’s going on with Lee Rossman.”

  The chief’s phone buzzed. He got up from the soft chair and picked it up. “Yeah,” he said, then listened. “Send him in.”

  Jorge, our IT guy, came in. He was about thirty, skinny, with gelled hair. He was wearing his usual uniform: Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and flip flops. “Thought you might want to see this.” He started to hand a piece of paper to the chief, who pointed to me.

  I took the paper. “What is this?”

  It was a list of outgoing calls Jorge pulled off Kirk Hendrickson’s phone. I scanned it quickly, and I knew who killed him.

  Chapter 29

  “Anything you�
�d like to share, Karen?” the chief said as he returned to the soft chair.

  I was holding the piece of paper with Kirk Hendrickson’s call log from Wednesday night. Apparently, I was gazing at the wall over the chief’s shoulder, not saying anything. Thinking but not saying anything—two activities not typical for me. “Sorry?”

  “What’s the piece of paper say?”

  “Kirk called Cheryl Garrity three times Wednesday night, at her office. Last call was after nine-thirty. She killed him around nine-forty, in the garage, put him in the trunk of her car, and drove him to Allumbaugh Park, where she dumped his body.”

  “It says that on the paper?” Ryan said, with a hint of a smile.

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Why’d she kill him?” the chief said, slowly and patiently.

  I shook my head. “Not exactly sure. But Kirk represented a threat to her or the company—or both. Something to do with dirty water he found out about by hacking her.”

  “So Kirk Hendrickson and Cheryl Garrity were talking three times that night,” the chief said. “They were negotiating?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And negotiations broke down?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Cheryl Garrity got Kirk to come to the garage. He thought the negotiations were going well. He was ready to wrap up the deal.”

  “What was the deal?” the chief said.

  “Not sure,” I said. “She was gonna give him money or a job or something in exchange for his silence about what he found out.”

  “How did she kill him?”

  “She ran him over, just like Harold said.”

  “Nobody saw this?”

  “Not at nine-forty at night. Nobody saw it.”

  “Then she put him in her trunk and drove him to the park?” the chief said.

  “That’s right.”

  The chief turned to Ryan. “Is she strong enough to do that?”

  “Yes, she is.” Ryan nodded. “They’re both about one-fifty. With the adrenaline, not a problem for her.”

  “Let’s pick her up,” I said.

  “Wait a second.” The chief was leaning forward, his head hanging down, his forearms on his thighs. “Nobody’s picking anyone up till we get this worked out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’d like to understand what the hell we’re doing. You pick her up now, how are you going to come at her? With a theory? We don’t have any CCTV of her killing him, no forensics putting Kirk in the truck of her car. We accuse her of the crime, all we do is give her time to clean up the trunk of her car and destroy any company records that would implicate her.”

  “So what do you want to do?” I said.

  “First, I want to rule out the other suspects. Second, I want better forensics. Ryan, how do we rule out Ron Eberly?”

  He thought for a second. “If he was in Marshall late Wednesday night, he probably didn’t kill Kirk. Ask the Marshall PD to find out where Eberly was that night. We might be able to figure out where Florence was then, too.”

  “Karen, you okay with Ryan doing that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, good. Karen, how do we rule out Lauren Wilcox?”

  “Ask her for an alibi.” I paused. “Ryan, you have those photos of Kirk’s body?”

  “They’re at my desk.”

  “Any that we could show Lauren that wouldn’t make her puke?”

  “There’s a couple of his arms showing some tats. We could crop out his chewed-up hands.”

  “We show her the photos, we’ll be able to tell if she knows he’s dead.”

  “All right,” the chief said. “Tell me how we can test out your theory that Cheryl Garrity killed Kirk in the garage.”

  “The way Harold described the trauma on his body, she hit him hard with her car. Look for rubber on the concrete.”

  “How do we know where she parked?”

  Ryan said, “Rossman Mining has about ten or twelve spots. Lee Rossman and Cheryl Garrity have their names on their spots.”

  “We send Robin over there,” I said. “She can take pictures of the concrete. There’s gonna be rubber there. She can shoot the car, too, for damage.”

  “Go do it,” the chief said.

  I stood up. “And if all that lines up, then can I arrest her?” It was my way of telling him I liked his approach, it being smarter than mine.

  “No.” He smiled. “Then you can come talk to me.” It was his way of telling me he was the chief of police. “But I appreciate your asking.”

  Ryan and I went back to the bullpen.

  “I’m going to call Detective Carpenter,” Ryan said, “see if he can run down where Ron Eberly was Wednesday night, okay?”

  I thought for a second. “Is there some way to do this without tipping him off what we’re up to?”

  “We don’t tell Carpenter what we’re doing. So Carpenter can’t tell Eberly. I’ll just tell him it’s the case we’re working on. What’s Eberly going to do: not tell Carpenter where he was that night?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Yeah, call him, then we’ll try to track down Lauren Wilcox.”

  I called Robin and told her to go over to the garage at Rossman Mining to see if she could get tire prints.

  Ryan was done in a minute. “Carpenter says he’ll get on it and get back to us as soon as he’s got anything.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Let’s find Lauren Wilcox.” I walked over to get my coat. “Don’t forget the photos.”

  “I got them,” he said, pointing to his briefcase. “Wait a second. I want to see if there’s a photo that doesn’t show him all chewed up.” He pulled the folder out of briefcase and started leafing through them. He settled on one and pulled a pair of scissors out of his desk drawer and trimmed it. “Not exactly professional-quality work, but it’ll do.”

  We went out the back and I drove us to the Sciences Building. Into the elevator and up to the third floor. I looked in the window on the door of room 319. Couldn’t see anyone. I knocked and walked in. A few seconds later, Lauren Wilcox emerged from a little office adjoining the lab.

  “Detective Seagate,” she said. “Detective Miner.” Her face showed her impatience with the interruption.

  “Professor Wilcox, we need a minute.”

  She nodded. Didn’t invite us to sit at any of the round tables off to the side of her river machine, which was still.

  We want to show you a photograph, see if you can help us identify a person. Will you do that?”

  Again, a silent nod. Ryan handed her the photo of Kirk’s right arm. On the bicep was a tattoo of three computer keys—Alt, Ctrl, and Del—with the Del key above the other two, making a triangle.

  She smiled. “Oh, yes, I recognize this. It’s one of my students: Kirk Hendrickson. When I saw it, last year, I asked him what it meant. He said it’s the three keys you use to re-boot a Windows machine when it freezes up.” She laughed. “I’m an Apple person, but he said it means sometimes you need to just start over. I thought it was really cute.”

  She looked at me and then at Ryan. When she noticed we didn’t consider it really cute, the smile faded from her face. “Why are you showing me this? What’s happening?”

  “Professor Wilcox, we need to tell you that a body of a young man has been recovered. He was carrying a wallet with the ID of Kirk Hendrickson. This is a photo of his right arm.”

  Lauren Wilcox began to shriek and started to collapse. Ryan rushed over to her and grabbed her. He led her over to one of the round tables and helped her into a chair. She was shrieking and moaning. “No,” she cried, over and over. She looked like a puppet with all the strings cut, her arms and legs limp, her head hanging down. It was a couple of minutes before she could talk in sentences.

  “What happened to Kirk?” she said, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

  “We’re not sure. The body was discovered late last night. The autopsy hasn’t been conducted yet.”

  “Whe
re was he found?”

  “In Allumbaugh Park.”

  “What was he doing there?” she said.

  I shook my head. “Can you help us with that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “When did you last see Kirk?”

  “He’s not in any of my classes this semester. Maybe a couple of weeks ago.”

  “You haven’t had any contact with him in the last few weeks?”

  She thought for a minute. “No, I haven’t.” She tried to pull herself together. “Why did you show me the photo of Kirk’s tattoo? Why didn’t you show me his face?”

  “His face sustained some damage in the attack. That’s why we aren’t sure it’s Kirk Hendrickson. We’ll need to check dental records. The photos of his face are very disturbing.”

  She swooned again, and Ryan had to grab her to keep her in the slippery plastic chair.

  We sat with her there for a minute while she got her crying under control. Eventually, she put her hands on the table and began to sit upright. “This is unbelievable,” Lauren Wilcox said. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt Kirk. He was such a nice young man. So bright.”

  “Tell us a little about him.”

  “Well, we weren’t friends socially, of course, and he never shared anything with me about his personal life—girlfriends, whatever. But I do know, from the course he took with me, that he was passionately interested in protecting the environment.”

  “Was he one of your majors?”

  “No, in fact, he was a computer-science major, I think. I tried more than once to get him to switch over, but he thought his talents lay more on the quantitative side of things. He thought data was the entry point for everything, and computing was the key to all data. We had many interesting discussions—in class, I mean—about how computer modeling was changing the way we understand how ecosystems evolve over time—you know, as new elements are added. I can tell you, as an old-fashioned ecologist with test tubes—like you saw the other day out at the river—I got a new appreciation of where the field is heading: data mining and data analysis. I think Kirk could have been an important person in that approach.” She paused and wiped away a tear. “This is just such a huge loss.”