VANISHING ACT - Angie Bartoni Case File # 11: Angie Bartoni Case File # 11 (Angie Bartoni Case Files)

by Marshall Huffman

  “He wore protective clothing. Sorry, but I don’t see a case here at this point.”

  “Alright. Hypothetically that really sucks,” I said.

  “Indeed. I hope this person gets what he deserves, hypothetically of course.”

  “Absolutely.

  ***

  When I got back, Dan told me that the captain wanted to see us right away.

  “Did he say why?’

  “Just to get in there the minute you came in.”

  We went to the office and he was on the phone. He held up a finger and then waved us to the infamous couch.

  “We have a shooting. Two men were attempting to carjack a guy and he had a gun and shot them both. 16th and Jackson. Hit it, they are waiting for you.”

  “On our way,” I said jumping up.

  Why did he even have us sit down? I decided not to waste brain cells on it and we headed to the car. 16th Street isn’t far from the station. We were there in less than fifteen minutes. There were at least a dozen cruisers blocking the place. As we walked up I saw a guy lying face down about fifteen feet from the car. The other guy had one foot in the car and the rest of his body was on the ground. His eyes were open and he was staring into…what? Death? Eternity? Hell?

  The shooter looked to be around fifty or so and well dressed. The car looked like a brand new BMW. I looked at the back. 750i. Pretty expensive ride. He looked ashen and I saw his hand tremble.

  I introduced Dan and myself. His name was Brian Storm and he was a Real Estate Broker.

  “Take your time and tell me what happened.”

  “It’s hard to put into words. It happened so fast, I just wasn’t ready for it.”

  “Just take it one step at a time.”

  “I was waiting to turn on the arrow. No one was coming and I almost just went on through but the traffic cameras, you know?”

  “Go on.”

  “I saw these two guys headed for my car. I tried to hit the door lock but got the window button instead. One of them yanked the door open and started hitting me. The other guy was pulling on my arm trying to get me out of the car. I still had the seat belt on. No way was he going to get me out like that. I pulled one arm free reached under my coat and pulled out my gun. I pointed at him and you know what he said?”

  “I have no idea?”

  “He said if I was going to pull a gun on him I had better be ready to use it. I shot him in the chest. The other guy let go and started to run. I shot at him. I guess I hit him. It happened so fast, I didn’t even think, I just pulled the trigger.”

  “Do you have a permit to carry a firearm Mr. Storm?”

  “I do. The firearm is registered and my permit is current,” he said taking the card out of his billfold and handing it to me. He was right. It still had two years to go on the license.

  “One thing bothers me Mr. Storm. You have a fancy car. Your doors should lock automatically when you reach a certain speed. How comes yours didn’t?”

  “It hasn’t been programed to. I think I screwed it up when I was playing with trying to set the clock. The book is as thick as a telephone book and written in who knows what? Heck, I couldn’t even get the clock set right.”

  “Alright Mr. Storm. Tell me about the other guy.”

  “What about him. He was the one pulling on me with my seat belt on. After I shot his friend he looked at me like he was going to hit me and then suddenly turned and ran. I didn’t think. I mean I don’t even remember pulling the trigger.”

  “You were probably in shock from pulling the trigger the first time.”

  “I don’t know if that was it or not.”

  “Listen to what I am saying. You were in shock from having just shot the first guy. You still thought he might harm you.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  I looked up and saw Dan giving me a funny look.

  “You gonna’ represent him in court,” a gravelly voice asked behind me.

  “Oh just what I need, smart remarks from the peanut gallery.”

  “Oooh, you are so witty. Well, maybe half of that is true,” Doctor Sorenson, the beloved ME, said.

  Beloved for sure; but why I still don’t exactly understand. We razz each other mercilessly. One of us is always trying to outdo the other.

  “Dan, could you point out the dead guy to the ME. I doubt he knows the dead from the living without a textbook.”

  “You mean dead-dead or just brain dead? In that case I would have to include you.”

  “Dan, get him out of here before I kick his cane out from under his feeble ol’ butt.”

  “I don’t use the cane for my butt,” he shot back.

  “Well perhaps you should,” I replied and took off before he could think of another insult.

  It was hard to get one up on Sorenson. He was the Grand King of insults.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “How are you coming on Milliken?” the captain asked.

  “We have nothing. Nothing we can use in court.”

  He frowned.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Sounds right to me. What about the money end?”

  “We have nothing that proves he killed them for the money. The life insurance policies were for piddling amounts. Twenty-five thousand on Mellissa and even less on the others.”

  “What do the neighbors say?” he asked.

  “Not much. They said they heard shouting from time to time but nothing too serious.”

  “Go back and talk to them again. Someone wants to spill the beans. If that is the case then maybe you can get a look at her medical records,” he said nodding toward my desk.

  Busted. I love this guy. He could really chew me out but he just sent me on my way. It is really hard to pull one over on McGregor.

  We drove out to Milliken’s neighborhood and started the task of banging on doors. On television, the detectives would already have this solved and be sitting around shooting the bull. We were walking and knocking.

  “Yes,” an older lady said cracking the door.

  I held up my credentials, “Detective Bartoni. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “It’s about poor Mellissa isn’t it?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh heavens, everyone knows how badly that poor lady was treated. Her husband is a monster.”

  “Really? Would you mind telling me more? I’m sorry, you are?”

  “Mrs. Callahan.”

  “It’s important,” I said.

  “Sure, come on in,” she said taking the chain off the door.

  We went into a spacious sitting room. Geez, I must be getting old. It was a front room okay?

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you. You were going to tell me about poor Mrs. Milliken.”

  “The man is a brute.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He would yell at her all the time. He would grab her by the arm and yank her around. I would go out and glare at him and he would yell at me and call me names. He was all nice when they had company but the minute they left he was yelling at her. Not a nice man at all.”

  “Did you ever call the police?”

  “Yes. On three separate occasions. They would come and talk a bit and go off. I don’t know how she took it.”

  “Did you ever talk to her about it?”

  “No. I tried but she wouldn’t say a thing. Once she had stitches and a huge black eye. I asked and she said she had fallen. No way. That no good man hit her.”

  “Did you witness anything other than him yanking her around by the arm?”

  “I saw him kick her once. Right in the thigh. She fell and couldn’t get up and he started yanking her hair until he could almost drag her into the house.”

  “Did you call the police that time?”

  “I did. I told them what I saw and they went and talked to him. A half hour later they drove off.”

  I was probably shaking my head the whole time. What a miserable life.
I was more determined than ever to get this jerk.

  “Thank you Mrs. Callahan. I may need to talk to you again.”

  “Did he hurt her again?”

  “Actually she is missing.”

  “If she had a lick of sense, she ran off.”

  ***

  As much as it angered me, it wasn’t a great deal of use. What did disturb me most of all is that police officers are trained to spot that kind of thing. ER people are trained to know when something doesn’t smell right. So how did he get away with it for so long? On top of that, he has been doing it for ten years and with three different wives.

  I met up with Dan and we compared notes. The neighbor across the street had seen him yelling at her several times but had never witnessed any actual physical abuse. She said he got so mad at her once he kicked the mail box down. He limped for a couple of days and she hoped he had broken his foot.

  The rest of the visits were a bust. Either they didn’t hear or witness anything or they just wouldn’t talk.

  We had more than we had started with but a lot less than we needed.

  “We need to pull the case files on his previous missing wives. I want to go over them with a fine tooth comb. I want to talk to the investigators that handled the cases originally if they are still around. The first one was only six years ago so it shouldn’t be too hard to get what we need,” I told him.

  “This all just feels wrong. Like you, why didn’t someone else pick up on the fact that these women were being abused?”

  “That’s a darn good question,” I agreed.

  “The other thing I can’t wrap my mind around is why you would allow someone to treat you that way. I mean these women were obviously well educated and had money. They weren’t some hicks that didn’t know any better. Why not just have the butthead hauled off to jail and get a good lawyer. Or better yet, get a divorce?”

  “Dan there is a whole dependency thing that I don’t understand either. Any man who did that to me would wake up a soprano one morning. No man is going to beat on me. I don’t want to hear how sorry they were later. Once is all it would take.”

  “So, lunch or back to the station?”

  I just rolled my eyes. Obviously he was hungry. It had been almost an hour and a half since he last ate. Of course he was hungry.

  “To lunch, so we can get some work done this afternoon.”

  “Great,” He said driving like a maniac to get to a Mexican Restaurant he had wanted to try out.

  ***

  When we got back to the station I was told the captain wanted to talk to me.

  “Both of us?”

  “He said just you.”

  I shrugged, “Okay.”

  I went to see the captain and he told me to take a seat. Like I said, it has several meanings when he says to take a seat. If he says to leave the door open, that’s one thing. If he tells you to close it, that is another.

  “Close the door.”

  Crap.

  “What’s up boss?”

  “I just got off the phone with the DA. Now before you blow your top I want to clue you in on what is happening.”

  “This does not sound good.”

  “Bartoni, listen to me. He is just doing his job.”

  “Better cut to the chase captain. I can feel the heat rising already,” I told him.

  “The Storm case.”

  “What about…wait. No way.”

  “Bartoni, he shot the second guy in the back. He has to charge him.”

  “Captain that is totally bogus. You tell me what you would have done in exactly the same situation. You have milliseconds to react. Are you going to sit there and tell me you would have done anything different?”

  “It isn’t our call. They are taking it to the Grand Jury. Our job is to investigate and arrest people. The DA makes the determination if a law was broken. The jury has the ultimate responsibility. We did our job. We have to let the others do theirs,” McGregor said.

  “I’m going to talk to the DA,” I said jumping up.

  “Bartoni, don’t put your foot in your mouth. You do that when you are mad. Right now isn’t the best time to go spouting off.”

  “Are you forbidding me from talking to him?”

  “No, I’m just saying, engage your brain before your mouth.”

  “I’ll do my best. Can I go now?”

  “Yes, but I want a report on what happened on your visit to the neighbors when you get back from making an ass out of yourself.”

  “Gee thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said.

  “Think nothing of it. Get,” he said pointing to the door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was sitting outside the DA’s door waiting for him to finish a meeting he was holding. It was probably a good thing because it gave me a little time to cool down. The drive in the Healey had helped as well. It always seemed to calm me down.

  The door opened and two attorneys scurried out. Sort of like cockroaches caught in the light.

  “You wanted to see me?” the DA said.

  The DA is Carl Peters. Frankly, I think he is dork. I’m not the least bit impressed by the man. His ties are always too short and he always looks disheveled. I wondered how he and ever gotten to be the DA.

  “Yes I did. I think we need to have a little chat,” I said pushing past him into his office.

  “Please come in,” he said standing at the door.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “This is about William Storm, isn’t it?”

  “How perceptive of you,” I said sitting down uninvited.

  “Your captain said you would be highly exercised by the decision to take this to the Grand Jury.”

  “I guess that is one way of describing it. I would call it a ‘chicken shit’ decision. Totally without merit.”

  “He shot a man in the back.”

  “He shot a man trying to hurt him. He was protecting his life. Everyone has the right to protect themselves. What was he supposed to do? Call 911? Get real Carl. You are charging him because he is white and the two hoods were black. It’s as simple as that. You are CYAing as fast as you can. You are afraid to just say they got exactly what they deserved. He sure wouldn’t have shot them if they hadn’t tried to pull him from his car.”

  “That is the way you see it and you are entitled to look at it that way but I see it as manslaughter. The other man was running away when he was shot.”

  “He was five feet at most from the car. How the heck do you know what really happened? Were you there? Have you ever been in that kind of situation? Well I have. You go on automatic in the split seconds you have you react. The gun was legal. He was licensed to carry. He did what anyone would have done in the same situation. You cannot pass judgment unless you have been in the same situation,” I said trying to keep my voice level.

  I knew I was getting close to really worked up. I could feel my neck getting red. That is always a bad sign.

  “That may be true but you don’t make the call. This office determines if a citizen acted correctly in a situation like this. We have determined that the first person was a legitimate shooting. The second crossed the line,” good old Carl said.

  “So you think you would have done something different in the same situation?”

  “I wouldn’t have shot the fleeing suspect,” he said.

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “I might have shot the first one. I’m not really sure, but definitely not the second one.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Bet?”

  “Yeah. You want to bet you can be so sure of yourself?”

  “I don’t understand. What are you getting at?”

  “Let’s put you in the same situation and see how you react.”

  “That’s crazy. You can’t replicate that.”

  “We can, and if you are so sure of yourself, you will agree to it.”

  “I am not putting myself in that situation. Look, the Grand Jury can make the determinat
ion. If you want to testify on his behalf that’s fine, but I am not going to make your case for you.”

  “Coward.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I said you were a coward. A wuss. You are afraid you will fail and look like a fool,” I said and stood up.

  I got to the door before he spoke.

  “I strongly suggest that you never talk to me like that again Detective Bartoni, if you want to stay on the police force.”

  “Wow, you’re really tough on the victims and cops trying to do their job. Kind of chicken on the perps, however. I don’t see you getting much support from the police force in the next few months. You need to think about that. We are the ones that do the leg work and bring it to you all nice and tidy so you can look good in court. I wouldn’t make too many threats, especially to someone who doesn’t back down,” I said as I opened the door and walked out, leaving it open.

  Walking down the hall I was starting to realize I probably hadn’t heard the last of this.

  ***

  I took my time getting back to the station. When I walked up stairs the captain came out immediately and gave me the ‘come here’ sign. Crap, that didn’t take long.

  “Sit.”

  I plopped down waiting. He slowly walked around to his chair and sat down. He moved the picture on his desk a couple of times. Bad sign. He clasped his hands and put his elbows on the desk. I was pretty sure that was to keep from wringing my neck.

  “The Commissioner is on his way over. The three of us are going to have a little discussion about what we can and cannot do.”

  “Capta…”

  He held up his hand, “Stop. We will just wait. You may want to go to the restroom now because I don’t want my couch to get wet when the Commissioner gets through with you.”

  I took his advice and used the little girl’s room. I put some cold water on my face and even pulled my hair back and wrapped a scrunchee around it. I went back and saw the Commissioner sitting down. Oh Angie, I told myself, you are such a dork. I went in to get it over with.

  “Detective Bartoni,” the Commissioner said.

  “Commissioner.”

  “You went to see the DA. Before I skin you alive, why don’t you tell me what brought all this on. I have bits and pieces but I want to hear your story before I react.”