Consulting Detective

by Alan Manifold

  The next call was to the Bridgeview Police Department to check on Brent Wiegand. Wiegand had been released pending trial, so Mihdí tried calling him at home. He picked up and said he didn’t have to work that day. Mihdí said he had a few questions and would stop by on his way to Scott Craig’s house.

  Finally, Mihdí called the Richardson Real Estate and Development office and found that Charlie Richardson was expected any moment but would be out of the office most of the day. Mihdí told the receptionist that he’d be right over and went down to his car. Richardson’s office was only about five minutes away, so Mihdí got there a bit after nine. Mihdí could hear Richardson on the phone in his office, so the detective waited in the outer office for a few minutes. Mihdí heard Richardson hang up, so he headed towards Richardson’s door, and the two of them almost bumped into one another.

  “Ah, Ximena said you were going to drop by. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Mihdí began, “I wanted to ask you about the city’s big redevelopment plan, Mr. Richardson. I understand you have been developing a proposal for partnering in the project.”

  “Yes,” Richardson said. “It could be a very lucrative deal, and I’d love to be able to get in on the action.”

  “How would you rate your chances at this point,” Mihdí asked him.

  “I tell you what, Detective Montgomery,” Richardson answered with a slightly irritated edge in his voice. “I’d be happy to fill you in on the whole project and where I might fit into it, but I really don’t have the time right now. I’m meeting some people—actually it’s the Grants, that same couple we talked about last time—up at the north end of town at 9:30, and I don’t want to be late. They seem like good prospects for a sale, and I don’t want them to walk. I need the business in this market.”

  Mihdí did a quick mental calculation to decide whether this latest excuse from Richardson was simply an attempt to block the course of his investigation, but he decided that there wasn’t really much to go on besides his gut feeling.

  “I get that,” he told the real estate agent. “I talked to the Grants last week, and they said they were meeting you. I won’t keep you. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, but perhaps we can talk again on Friday?”

  “That might work,” Richardson said. “I’ve got a few appointments with folks throughout the weekend, but my schedule’s not full by any means. Would 1:00 p.m. work for you on Friday?”

  “I should be able to do that, yes,” Mihdí said. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Richardson.”

  Mihdí had not yet received the murder investigation file from the New Lenox police department for the previous murder—the one for which Brent Wiegand had been questioned—so he decided he would try to get something out of Wiegand himself about it. Getting to Wiegand’s apartment took only a few minutes. He went around to the side and up the stairs and knocked on Wiegand’s door. When Wiegand opened the door, he was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. He didn’t greet Mihdí; he merely turned and walked back to the couch, where he plopped down and crossed his arms.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Wiegand. I just have a few things I’d like to talk over with you.”

  No response.

  “I understand that you were questioned about six months ago about a murder in New Lenox. Can you tell me about that?”

  Wiegand started a bit, but didn’t respond immediately. Mihdí waited in silence.

  “I was at a bar, drinkin’ with some friends after work one day. I ain’t got a car, so I was just walking around trying to find the train station when I left. When they found that dude’s body, some folks reported having seen me around there. The cops tracked me down through the bar and picked me up. I told ’em I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it. They kept me there for a while, but they didn’t have nothin’ to tie me to no murder, so they let me go.”

  “And was that the last of it, or did you talk to the police again after that?”

  “Not until you showed up here.”

  “Okay. Why were you drinking in New Lenox, if I can ask?”

  “My buddy, Jason, lives over there. He’s ex-Army, so that VFW post is his normal hangout. We go over there sometimes.”

  “Mmm. I’d like to ask you about the night you were arrested at the Islamic Center in Bridgeview. Tell me about that.”

  “Well, I just decided to go over there to mess the place up, so I did.”

  “Why did you pick that place?”

  “Just felt like it. No reason.”

  “The literature I found in your hall storage closet was all about African Americans, not about Muslims, so why did you target the Islamic Center?”

  “I told ya, no reason.”

  “When you were arrested, you were wearing gloves. Why was that?”

  “I didn’t want to leave fingerprints, you moron! Why else? I didn’t expect to git caught, did I?

  “Those gloves had quite a bit of fresh black paint on them. That’s the color you were using to spray slogans on the wall there, so that makes sense. But they also had red paint on them, and I found some cans of red spray paint in your storage closet. How did your gloves get the red paint on them?”

  “Well, it’s not the first time I used spray paint, is it?”

  “Isn’t it? Where else have you used it?”

  “I don’t remember. It was too long ago.”

  “Really? Those gloves looked pretty new to me. Are you sure if we checked with retailers that we wouldn’t find that you bought them recently?”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “How do you know they wouldn’t remember?”

  “Because I took a couple pairs from work. It’s no big deal. They got thousands of ’em.”

  “But it was recently, right?”

  “Mebbe.”

  “So you would remember where you used the red paint?”

  “Just somewhere, alright!”

  “No, it’s not alright. If you vandalized some other place ‘for no reason,’ I want to know where it was.”

  “I’m not tellin’ you. It’s a secret.”

  “A secret? Between you and who else?”

  “Nobody. Just me.”

  “But you did vandalize somewhere else?”

  “I said, I’m not sayin’ another word about it!”

  Mihdí could see Wiegand was a bit rattled, so he pressed on with more questions.

  “How did you know about the Islamic Center?”

  “I didn’t. I just was out and stumbled onto it.”

  “So, you just walked from here over to Bridgeview, picked a place at random, and it happened to be the Islamic Center? Is that it?”

  “No, I didn’t walk from here. I took the bus.”

  “In the middle of the night, you packed up your spray paint and gloves, took probably two or more buses for what must have taken more than an hour to a nowhere section of Bridgeview and just happened to find an Islamic Center? Come on, Brent, give me something I have at least a chance of believing!”

  Wiegand sat silently, with his arms still crossed, glaring at Mihdí. Mihdí just sat, with as open a look as he could manage, waiting for Brent to speak. After more than a minute, Wiegand finally looked away and snorted.

  “I went there on purpose. I got a ride from a friend at about midnight and just hung out until it was time.”

  “Until it was time? A specific time?”

  “Yeah, I was supposed to wait until 3:30 in the morning.”

  “Supposed to wait until 3:30? Whose idea was that?”

  Wiegand was sweating and his glance darted around nervously. “I mean I decided I would wait until then.”

  “Mmm. But that’s not what you said. You said you were supposed to wait until 3:30. You wouldn’t say that if you had planned it yourself. Whose plan was it?”

  “I’m not sayin’ nothin’ more.”

  “Well, listen, Brent. You’ve already been arrested for vandalism. Because of the previous suspicion, you’re unlikely to get off too easily. I think, in time,
we can tie you to the spray paint at the synagogue, which puts you in line for at least manslaughter, if not first degree murder. If you’re protecting someone by your silence, you might want to ask yourself if the consequences for you won’t be worse this way.”

  Wiegand looked around like a trapped animal, breathing hard and rocking back and forth a bit on the couch.

  “I can’t tell you, man. I just can’t.”

  Mihdí waited to see if Brent would go on, but he didn’t.

  “OK. I can see you’re scared, and you’ve said you can’t tell me anything more about that. But let me just go through a possible scenario. I won’t even ask you to tell me if I’m right. Just keep looking me in the eyes.”

  Wiegand nodded and looked at Mihdí.

  “Somebody has something over you, and you know precisely what it is and what it means. They have threatened you in some way—with exposure or harm or something—and they said you’d better obey their instructions or else. They told you to go to the Islamic Center at exactly 3:30am, break in, and vandalize the place.”

  Mihdí could see from Wiegand’s expression that he was on the mark.

  “Let me step back a pace or two with this. This same blackmailer told you last week to go to the synagogue and spray slogans there, right? You didn’t feel like you had any choice, so you did it. But then the rabbi showed up and you didn’t want to get caught, so you killed him.”

  “No way, man! I didn’t see nobody.”

  “That’s not what the evidence says. There were traces of spray paint on the rabbi’s body, which means that some of it was done after the rabbi was killed.”

  “I don’t know nuthin’ about that. The note told me to leave the spray paint in the building. I sprayed what he asked, and then I left.”

  “You wrote three phrases on the wall?”

  “Nah, man, just two, just like the note told me to do. Somethin’ about Palestine and ‘Death to the Jews.’”

  “Brent, let’s imagine that I believe your story. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who is blackmailing you. It’s likely you’ll take the blame for the murder if we can’t find somebody else to pin it on. Did they tell you that the reason you got arrested was that a tip was called in to the Bridgeview police that night? I think you can figure out who called that in.”

  “Jesus!” Wiegand sat silently for a moment. “I don’t know who it is, man, I swear! I’ve only gotten notes.”

  “The notes must have contained enough information for you to know what it was about, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so quick to obey.”

  “I know what it’s about, but I don’t know who it is.”

  “If you tell me everything, we may be able to figure it out from there.”

  “I’m not talkin’ ’bout that. No way!”

  “Do you still have any of the notes you received?”

  “Nah. They said I needed to burn ’em or they’d know. I wasn’t takin’ no chances.”

  “Okay, I guess we’ll leave it at that for now, Brent. Thank you for your time. I’d like to suggest that you go to the police station and turn yourself in for the vandalism at the synagogue. All of this stuff is going to be part of my report, and it might do you some good to do it yourself, rather than getting picked up for it.”

  Mihdí still had an hour before he was due to meet Scott Craig. Craig lived in the north part of Pine Bluff, and Wiegand’s apartment was in the south, so Mihdí headed north. He stopped in at his office, which was right on the way, and entered his latest notes into the computer. He hadn’t done that for a while, so it kept him busy right up until he needed to leave to see Scott Craig.

  Craig was drying his hands from doing the dishes from his late breakfast when he answered the door. He ushered Mihdí into his living room, and they sat opposite each other.

  “Mr. Craig, I’ve got a few questions that have come up, based on conversations I’ve had with a few other people. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.”

  “I’m always happy to help, Detective. What do you need to know?”

  “When we first spoke, I believe you told me that you and Tammy Ornstein had ‘gone out for a while.’ Was your relationship perhaps a bit deeper than that?”

  “I guess we were pretty serious for a while.”

  “Pretty serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tammy told me that you two were engaged. Is that what you call ‘pretty serious’?”

  “Yes, we were engaged. I don’t like to talk about it because Tammy broke it off. Makes me look like a loser, doesn’t it?”

  “What was your relationship like after Tammy broke off your engagement? Did you still talk to each other? You saw each other at Temple from time to time, right?”

  “We didn’t talk much. When I saw her at the synagogue, I’d say ‘hello,’ but not much else.”

  “Did you call her sometimes?”

  “A few times at first, I guess. I haven’t called her lately.”

  “Did she ever call you?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “OK, I’ve heard enough lies. Tammy told me that she called you on the day that Jacob Klemme was killed. Given that you went to her office shortly after that, I’d have to say she’s more believable than you are.”

  Mihdí waited. Craig was staring at him, shocked.

  “This game is over, Scott,” Mihdí continued. “I want the truth from now on, or I will arrest you for obstruction. Let’s hear the whole story this time, with no variations from the truth.”

  Craig was ready to make an angry response, but Mihdí looked at him squarely in the eye without blinking. Craig seemed to think better of it. He looked down and sat quietly for a few moments, while Mihdí waited.

  “OK,” Craig said at last. “Yes, Tammy called me that morning. She said that she and Klemme were going to get engaged, and she wanted me to know about it ahead of time so I wouldn’t go ballistic or something. It was a short conversation, because I was too angry to say much. After I hung up, I just sat there stewing about it. I decided I’d go over and try to talk to her about it.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To talk her out of it! We’ve known each other since we were kids. We belong together. Everybody knows that, including Tammy. When she broke up with me, I thought it was just some short-term thing and that she’d get over it. Then, when she was dating the rabbi, I thought that was just some rebound thing and that she’d eventually tire of him and come back to me. But when she called me to say they were getting engaged, it seemed like she was playing that game a little too seriously. I just wanted to tell her that I still loved her and wanted to be with her.”

  “What time was all of this?”

  “Um, she must have called at maybe 10:30am. I just was paralyzed for a long time, then I left and drove over there. I must have arrived a bit before noon or something like that. It was midday, so the traffic was heavy.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, I talked to her, like I said. I told her I wanted her to be happy and that I was the one who could do that best. I was thinking of all the good times we had. I just wanted to get her to feel good and remember what a great couple we make. I thought it was going well. I thought maybe she’d change her mind or at least postpone the engagement or something. I thought she was happy I was calling her bluff and that I’d get her back.”

  “But . . .”

  “But then she told me that she wasn’t going to change her mind and that she was still planning to marry Klemme.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “How do you think? It pissed me off. I don’t even know what I said after that. I must have told her she was making a mistake, and probably a lot worse than that. I was yelling and pacing back and forth, and I don’t know what I said. She just sat there and looked at me—a little scared, maybe. At some point, I noticed that other people around were reacting, and I left. I sat in my car for a while, trying to calm down, but it wasn’t wor
king very well.”

  “You haven’t said when you made an appointment to see Rabbi Klemme. How did that happen?”

  “Oh, I forgot that part. I called him from my office, before I left to see Tammy. I was still hopeful at that time, but I thought if things didn’t go well with Tammy, I might still have a chance to sway him a little.”

  “Alright. That sounds reasonable. So, you were sitting in your car, trying to calm down, but you were still quite agitated. What did you do?”

  Craig stared at the floor and said quietly, “I used my phone to find the nearest gun shop and went to buy a gun.”

  Mihdí raised his eyebrows at that, but he didn’t say anything.

  Craig continued, “I’m sure you know that there’s a three-day waiting period.”

  Mihdí nodded.

  “Well, I didn’t know that until I got there. I was thinking I could threaten Klemme and get him to break it off with Tam. But then I realized I couldn’t buy a gun that same day, so I just left.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get any work done, so I went home.

  The more I thought about not being able to get a gun, the angrier I got. I decided I’d look on the Internet to see if there was some way I could get around the waiting period. I must have spent three hours looking, but didn’t find anything.”

  “Was it time for you to go meet Rabbi Klemme by then?”

  “Not quite. I got myself a snack and listened to NPR for a while. Then I drove over to the synagogue and found Klemme’s body, like I told you before.”

  “Did you do your gun searching on that computer on the desk over there?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “May I take a quick look at it?”

  “I suppose, why?”

  “I just want to take a quick look at the browsing history, to see if there’s any evidence to support your story.”

  “Oh, I see. OK.”