DEAD ON ARRIVAL: Angie Bartoni Case File # 14 (Angie Bartoni Case Files)

by Marshall Huffman

  “How perceptive of you. Tell me Bartoni, what are my top three rules?” he queried.

  “Never lie to you. Always tell you when we screw up before you find out from another source. Never embarrass the department.”

  “Well then perhaps you can tell me how I know about what happened with Dan and two citizens.”

  “Captain, did Dan tell you what happened?”

  “You are missing the point Bartoni. I don’t care what happened or why. What I care about is that neither of you came and told me. I had no heads up and that is what does matter,” he said.

  “Captain…”

  “Stop Bartoni. I don’t want to hear any half-baked excuse. There is absolutely no excuse for you not coming over and letting me know what had gone down.”

  I sat there for a few seconds not saying a word. He was 100 percent right. We really had no excuse. It would have been the right thing to do. I knew I deserved whatever he had in mind for me in the way of punishment.

  “You’re right. I should have marched in here and told you what happened and at a minimum, given you a heads-up.”

  “What you should have done was sent Dan in here and let him tell me. He said all you tried to do was stop him from pounding those two into the ground.”

  “They were picking on a homeless vet, beating him up,” I got in quickly.

  “Yes, I know all of that but it still doesn’t excuse the fact that you didn’t let me know. Dan is lucky. If this had gone to IA he wouldn’t just be cooling his heels for a couple of days and it would have ended up in his jacket.”

  “You’re absolutely right captain. I honestly just didn’t think about coming to you. I was pretty upset with Dan as it was and I just wanted to put the whole thing in the back of my mind. I should have made him come tell you or done it myself. I have no excuse,” I replied.

  I was sincere. I know how McGregor works. He could have ended up with egg on his face if IA had gotten wind of it before he did. Now he can honestly say he has already taken care of it. I felt pretty low for letting him down.

  “There is no use beating a dead horse. You screwed up and we both know it. Dan is suspended for two days so you are going to have to work with LeRoy as a partner until his suspension is up,” the captain informed me.

  “Awe captain. LeRoy? Look, all I am doing is a few interviews. Re-interviews actually. There is no need to have LeRoy assigned to the case while Dan is suspended.”

  “I don’t like you working alone.”

  “Come on captain. I was working alone before Dan became my partner and I did just fine,” I pleaded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We both know LeRoy is nothing more than a body taking up space. He isn’t going to bring one thing to the party,” I said.

  He looked at me for several moments. I knew he was trying to decide if having me run around on my own was a good idea or not.

  “Alright Bartoni, under one condition.”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “You check in and debrief me each night before you take off for the evening. I also will want to know where you are going when you leave. I don’t want something to happen to you again and us not even know about it for twenty-four hours,” he told me in reference to the time a crazy cop decided to kidnap and try to kill me.

  “Deal,” I replied.

  “Alright. You can operate by yourself until Dan gets back,” he told me.

  “Thanks captain, I appreciate that.”

  “Now how about you going to work and finding out who is killing the fine folks over at Nemein. I’m sure they would be most appreciative of it,” he said.

  “I shall attempt to do just that.”

  “Don’t attempt, just do it,” was his reply.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Even though Dan was suspended I decided to have Megan Stewart come in for further questioning. When she came to the station she had her ‘friend’ with her who was just a tad too pushy for my liking.

  “You are not going to badger her,” were the first words out of her mouth.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I won’t stand for you trying to push her around.”

  “Let me give you a piece of advice. Back it down right this minute or I will shove my fist through your face. You don’t come into my house and get in my face. In case you don’t realize it you are in a cop shop and we have a tendency to get touchy about smart mouthed people.”

  She looked at me trying to decide how to handle her next move. I know she wanted to save face but she was smart enough to know if she went too far it would not turn out well for her.

  “All I am saying is that I don’t want her to be abused.”

  “We don’t abuse people here. We interview. The use of blackjacks has been outlawed for several decades now,”

  “Okay then.”

  “Megan, you come with me. Lisa, you just take a seat over there and wait,” I told her and didn’t wait for an answer.

  Megan followed along behind me while Lisa just stood there. She could stand there until she fell down for all I cared. I took Megan to Interview room B. We used to call them interrogation rooms but with all the PC crap, we changed the name. The same things go on as before but now we are oh so correct so we don’t offend anyone. I’m waiting for the next mandate telling us to call them discussions rooms.

  I had Megan take a seat and I asked her if she wanted something to drink.

  “Just water would be good.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I told her as I left and went to the viewing room.

  I wanted to let her wait for a few minutes and see how she reacted. I was rather surprised. She seemed relaxed and not overly concerned about the wait. I grabbed a bottle of water and went back in to talk to her.

  “Here you go,” I said handing her the water.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now,” I said, pulling out my chair and sitting down, “As the head of Marketing, do you have access to every area in the building?”

  “Well not the CEO’s floor but yes, I have access to all the others.”

  “Including the nuclear medicine area?”

  “I have access to it but I have never been there. I told you that I don’t even know the correct protocols and if I did, there would be a record.”

  “We checked the video. There is one person who shows up but there is no way to ID who it is. They were careful to keep their face turned away from the camera,” I said.

  “Well it sure wasn’t me.”

  “So you are telling me that no matter how far back we go, you will never have accessed the nuclear medicine room?”

  “Absolutely. You can check all you want and you will not find my video or name on the log.”

  “Wait. What log?” I asked, sitting up.

  “The Protocol Logue. Meyers keeps a log of everyone who requests access to that area.”

  “She didn’t tell us that. She only mentioned the videos. Why would she conceal something like that?”

  “I don’t know but I would say it is going to be a little hard to ask her at this point.”

  “Would you take a polygraph test?”

  “I don’t particularly like the idea but as long as the questions were related to my job and Nemein I guess it would be okay. I probably should ask Lisa what she thinks.”

  “We aren’t asking Lisa to take one, just you.”

  “Yes. I know but she is very protective.”

  “Alright Megan, you ask her if you think it’s necessary,” I said like she was a child having to ask her mommy.

  We talked for another half hour before I was satisfied that she had told me everything she knew. I was pretty sure she had nothing to do with either of the murders. I couldn’t prove it but she just did not fit the profile of someone who could stab another person. Poison, maybe, but not something as personal or physical as sticking a knife into another person not once but several times.

  ***

  I decided that I would go after Lancaster ne
xt. He thought he was above it all. I hate it when someone threatens me with an attorney. What a stupid thing to do. It makes it adversarial right off the bat. The attorney always has to strut like a peacock to show his client how much he knows. What a crock of crap.

  I decided to call him and schedule a time for him to come in. Just showing up at his house could get even uglier.

  “Mr. Lancaster, Detective Bartoni.”

  “Yes.”

  “I would like for you come in. We need you to make a formal statement and I have a few questions to ask you.”

  “I seriously doubt that is going to happen.”

  “Sir, you can’t even begin to imagine how wrong you are. It is going to happen. I will have a bench warrant issued for your arrest. I am not asking you to come in, I am telling you that you are going to do it one way or the other. You can come in voluntarily or I can have a patrol car sent to pick you up. Of course it may be in handcuffs that way so you decide.”

  “Are threatening me? You can’t get away with this,” he yelled into the phone.

  “I most certainly can and will. You decide.”

  “This is outrageous. I haven’t done a thing wrong and you are treating me like a criminal,” he said, his voice climbing an octave higher.”

  “Then come in voluntarily and let’s get this over with. The sooner you are cleared the faster you can get on with your life,” I told him.

  It was silent. I knew he was trying to figure out the best thing to do.

  “Mr. Lancaster?”

  “Yes. Alright. I can’t do it just now. How about 4:30 this afternoon?”

  “That will be just fine. Just tell the Sargent at the desk you are here to see me and he will escort you to my desk,” I told him.

  “I intend to bring my attorney,” he said.

  “The more the merrier. Just know this, I run the interview and not the attorney. It’s not like on television. I will not take any crap from any attorney. Understand?”

  “Fine.”

  “4:30 p.m. then,” I said and hung up.

  ***

  At 4:30 sharp, Sargent Miller brought Lancaster upstairs along with a guy whom I assumed was his attorney. The guy was short, fat, and mostly bald. His tie was crooked and his suit was rumpled. His eyebrows were his most predominant feature. They could have been combed back to cover his bald head.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said standing when they came up the stairs.

  “I didn’t really have much of a choice now did I?”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Some choice,” he shot back.

  “But a choice nevertheless.”

  I took them to the same room where I had talked to Megan earlier in the day. The two of them sat across from me. The attorney opened his briefcase and handed me a card: Lossner, Stoner, and Bails PA’s. I tried not to laugh at the Stoner name. I mean can you imagine people calling out his name? Hey Stoner, how you doing dude? Okay I guess you had to be here to see the humor in it.

  “You are?”

  “John Bails.”

  “Alright, let’s just get one thing on the table right this minute. This interview is over when I say it is over. Not you, nor your client.”

  “I’m not sure I can agree with that.”

  “I wasn’t asking. That’s the way it is going to be.”

  He frowned but didn’t say anything further. I’m not sure what got into me. The way he looked? No, he was no worse than others who came in. I guess it was just the simple fact that I was starting to feel the pressure of coming up empty handed.

  “Before we do start,” Lancaster said, “I will apologize for the rude way I acted when you came to my home. I had asked you to come after hours so no one would know and then I was snippy. For that I am sorry.”

  “I appreciate that Mr. Lancaster. That is very gracious of you,” I told him.

  I flipped through my notes and decided to ask a critical question right out of the box.

  “Mr. Lancaster did you kill Doctor Wittman or Tanya Meyers.”

  His attorney started to speak but Lancaster took hold of his arm.

  “I most certainly did not. I did know Doctor Wittman. We have never met socially but at conferences and such. I don’t know who Tanya Meyers is other than seeing her picture in the paper when she was killed.”

  “Do you have total access to every part of Lilly’s facility?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does that include nuclear medical material?”

  “Actually, we don’t have any in the headquarters building. Most of it is at the actual labs. One is over by Clinton, Indiana and they probably have the bulk of it. There is a small amount at the Lilly Technological Center. We don’t keep any at the world headquarters.”

  Well that took me back a little.

  “I see. Do you ever visit the Technological Center or Clinton facility?” I asked.

  “I do. I was in Clinton just a few months ago. I visited the Technological Center the day I came back from my trip.”

  “What about before that visit?”

  “Several months ago, I’d say five or six at least,” Lancaster answered.

  “Mr. Lancaster, would you be willing to take a polygraph test?”

  “He most certainly would not. They prove nothing and cannot be used in court. There is absolutely no reason for Mr. Lancaster to submit himself to some hocus-pocus machine that can be interpreted by some half-wit,” Bails said.

  Lancaster didn’t reply, he just sat there looking at a spot just over my right shoulder. It was all I could do to not turn around a see what he found so interesting.

  “Mr. Lancaster, would you allow us to search your house without a warrant?”

  “He will not,” Bails interrupted, “If you want to search his residence, then get a warrant.”

  “I was asking Mr. Lancaster,” I shot back.

  “I think I had better listen to my attorney on that,” he replied.

  I asked four or five more questions but by that time I was really tired of Bails and just wanted him gone. I cut Lancaster loose.

  Neither interview had been particularly useful. I was leaning toward dismissing Lancaster as the murderer. I don’t know why exactly but he just didn’t seem…manly enough, especially for stabbing someone to death. He wasn’t the type to get his hands dirty or in this case, bloody.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The day had been another virtual washout. All I had accomplished was to irritate an attorney. Actually in retrospect, that’s not too bad. What I hadn’t accomplished was anything useful regarding the case.

  I went in to bring the captain up to speed. It wouldn’t take long. I explained the two interviews, my overall take on how they went. A synopsis of my feelings about the two potential suspects and what I hoped to accomplish next.

  “So you have Pike and King to talk to.”

  “Yeah. If something doesn’t raise my antenna soon we are going to be right back where we started.”

  “You’ll be in a hole. You won’t even have these suspects to look at,” McGregor said.

  “That’s a cheery thought.”

  “Get Pike and King in here tomorrow if you can. We need to know where we stand. Right now the media has moved on but if someone else turns up dead it will get ugly fast.”

  “Amen to that,” I replied.

  Sometimes I think than man is a psychic. I had just sat down at my desk when I was informed that Ted King had been involved in an accident and was in critical condition at Methodist Hospital. Now what?

  I let the captain know and headed out to see if I could find out what happened. The crash had taken place on Southport Road so I went there to see what had happened.

  The usual gathering of police cruisers were there and diverting traffic. I parked by the side of the road and made my way to the crash site. A red Corvette, or what was left of it, was almost split in two by a tree. Fiberglass, engine parts and plastic were scattered across the two lane road.

  “
You Detective Bartoni?” an officer with Sargent Thompson on his badge asked.

  “That’s me,” I said, showing him my badge.

  “Your guy, King, was driving west on Southport. As far as we can tell, someone ran him off the road. When he hit the shoulder, he lost control and plowed into the guardrail before coming back across the road and wrapping the Vette around a tree.”

  “Anyone witness the accident?”

  “One motorist said they came up on the accident just a few seconds after it happened. They stopped and called 911.”

  “Any ID on the car?”

  “Just that it was black or dark blue.”

  “Well that’s a big help,” I said walking toward what was left of the Corvette.

  “Hey, at least you can eliminate all the other colors,” he said tipping his hat and walking off.

  I wanted to say ‘big help’ but refrained.

  There wasn’t much left of the car. The body was mostly splintered fiberglass and the front end was hanging by only a few metal components. After looking at the interior I was surprised that he had lived through it.

  Here I was again. Was this just an accident or had someone intentionally forced King off the road? In the past month alone we have had seven hit-and-run accidents, two on this very same road. It isn’t like it is unheard of. Still, the fact that it was another Nemein employee and one of the candidates for the CEO position put a different spin on it.

  I decided to go talk to the witness and see if they could shed any light on the situation. I found them talking to one of the officers who had his notebook out and was writing down what I assumed to be information.

  The couple looked to be in their 50’s and since the man had no glasses on I assumed he either wore contacts or still had good vision.

  “Hi, I’m Detective Bartoni. You are?”

  “James Harold and this is my wife, Emily,” Mr. Harold replied.

  “I understand that you saw the accident or at least the end of it.”

  “We didn’t actually see the two vehicles hit,” Mr. Harold corrected.

  “Okay, can you tell me what you did see?”

  “You see, we were headed east, doing the posted speed limit, which is forty-five. A dark colored vehicle was behind us and followed us for quite some ways before they suddenly sped up and just blew on past us. I would say they were doing well over 70 miles per hour. They went over that little hill there,” he said, pointing down the road, “And then when we came over it, we saw the red car hit the guardrail then go back across the road and hit the tree. It sounded like a bomb going off. The other car never even slowed down.”