Girl Found: A Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery

by Kate Gable

  "I have before but mainly when I had to."

  "I'm actually thinking about going to school for it."

  "You are?" I ask. "What about this?"

  "I don't know. I like it, but the clients are a little too much, too demanding. A lot of people want designs that they find online that other artists have done. They don't want to let me do what I want to do, which makes sense because it's their body, but it makes for a difficult situation. I'm not a tracer. I'm an artist."

  “I’d encourage you to do whatever you want,” I say. "Life is too short to not pursue your passions."

  "What about you?" Eve asks, raising an eyebrow.

  I clench my jaw.

  I don't know how this conversation's gotten away from me so much. On one hand, I want to make her feel comfortable enough to open up and tell me things that maybe she wouldn’t otherwise. On the other hand, the conversation has suddenly turned personal.

  "Did you always want to be a police officer?" she asks, choosing her words carefully.

  "I've always wanted to be a detective," I say.

  I look down at my notepad and tell her that we've gotten a little bit off track.

  "Can you tell me more about Nick? He said that he felt like he was in purgatory. Do you think that he could have been violent?"

  "No," she says quickly, "there was a fight that broke out at one of the parties and he broke it up. He didn't instigate anything. He didn't seem like the type of guy who was out looking for trouble."

  “Were the parties the only times you talked to him?" I ask.

  "No. He actually also came here. I gave him a tattoo."

  "You did?" I ask.

  "Yeah. Statue of Liberty kind of on the side of his stomach. He had a big scar there and when I asked him what it was, he said he didn't want to talk about it, so I assumed that it had something to do with being in the Middle East."

  "How did it turn out?"

  “He loved it. I made it very detailed. He wanted it to be very realistic. It wasn't his first one. He had a few others done on a base somewhere, but they weren't that great and he seemed to be impressed with mine when he left. He gave me a big tip.”

  I tap my pen on my notebook.

  "What about Janine Sato?”

  “She was the one who was murdered?” Eve asks, lowering her voice to a whisper.

  “Have you ever met her?"

  "No."

  "Do you know if they were together?"

  "No, I don't think so, but I don't know."

  I show her a picture of Janine on my phone to jog her memory.

  "Oh, wait. This is Janine?"

  I nod.

  "Actually, yeah. I saw her at a party at Danny's, but I didn't talk to her and she didn't have any tattoos."

  "No, she didn't," I say.

  I'm about to ask her some more questions when the man that led me into the shop comes in and pulls her away, telling her about a walk-in client.

  "I'm sorry, but I have to take this," she says.

  "I have enough for now, but I'll be in touch if I have any other questions."

  "Yeah, of course," she says. "Call me anytime."

  As I head toward the door, Eve runs up to me.

  "One more thing. I really don't think that Nick had anything to do with that girl's murder."

  "You don’t?" I ask. "Any particular reason?"

  "No, but I just really don't think that he did. He seemed so quiet, shy, and not in that, ‘I'm quiet, shy, and secretly a serial killer.’ No. Not at all. He didn't give me any creepy vibes. He wasn't intense. He was just like this big teddy bear. He just seemed lost more than anything. I really wish that he had talked to someone about all that guilt that he felt."

  "So, what do you think happened?" I ask. "If he didn't kill her, how did she end up dead in his apartment and why is he gone?"

  "I have no idea. Maybe somebody else did it, trying to frame him?”

  I grab my purse.

  “But it seems unlikely," Eve adds and I couldn't agree more.

  21

  All the way on the drive over to the precinct, I review the interview with Eve Navarro. In my mind, I go over everything that she said and although it has a lot of interesting highlights, one stands out.

  She said that her boyfriend, Danny Usoro, had met the murder victim, Janine Sato, either at one of the parties that he hosted or one of Nick's parties.

  This stands in stark contrast to what Danny told me earlier. Danny had insisted that he had never met Janine, probably to not place himself as someone who could possibly know anything about what happened, but now there's a contradiction.

  There's no point for Eve to lie, but there is a reason for Danny. The question now is what do I do with this information?

  Later that afternoon, we arrange to have Danny brought in for more of an official interview, this time at the precinct. It will be recorded and I will be the one asking him questions.

  He volunteers to come and he does not mention bringing a lawyer, which is good news. Lawyers are a constitutional right, but they're not great news for us. They ask questions, they stop us from asking more, and they get their clients to shut up.

  Of course, false confessions are relatively common, a lot more than you’d even expect. The people who are particularly vulnerable to giving untrue testimony are those suffering from mental illness or mental handicaps. As far as I know, Danny suffers from neither.

  He’s here to clear up a few confusing points and contradictions, and hopefully give us more information about what he knows.

  "Carr," Captain Medvil calls my name as I walk past his office.

  Holding a Big Gulp of Coke in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other hand, he gestures for me to come in.

  "I'm putting Thomas Abrams on the interrogator list," he says and cold sweat runs down my spine.

  "No. I can do this by myself."

  “It will be better if you work together. Good cop, bad cop, you know, that kind of thing. This is going to require a delicate balance."

  "You don't think that I can be delicate enough?"

  "That's not what I said."

  Medvil spills some coffee on his hand and winces in pain, sucking it up into his mouth. He grabs a few napkins and wipes his pants.

  "Why do they always make it so hot?" he complains and I give him a few seconds to calm down before arguing my case against Thomas Abrams.

  "As an interrogator, he can be quite rushed. He can intimidate suspects too much. It will be easier for me to work on this by myself."

  "I know that it will be easier for you," Captain Medvil says, sitting down behind his cluttered desk.

  There are piles of folders everywhere, even blocking part of the computer.

  "This decision is not about making your life easier. This is about what's good for the case."

  I'm about to argue against him again, but he raises his hand up and tells me to go.

  I walk out defeated and full of anger. The captain has no right to put Thomas Abrams on this case. I can do this by myself. He hasn't worked it at all from the beginning, so why would he be on it now?

  "Hey there.” Thomas waves hello to me and gets up from the chair right across from my desk.

  He has heard the news and he's here waiting to prepare.

  The interview starts in forty-five minutes. I force a smile on my face. I don't want him to know how annoyed I am, frustrated, or that I have any feelings about this whatsoever.

  Since the last time I saw him, Thomas has gotten rid of that standard issue cop haircut of having it short all around, almost bordering on a buzz cut, and grown the top of his hair a little longer. The sides fall into a fade.

  His hair is the color of wheat with just a few highlights and it has just enough product to not make it look like it's soggy wet.

  His eyes are hazel and his narrow nose, somewhat delicate cheekbones, and jaw make him look beautiful and remind me of why I fell for him in the first place.

  "I guess you heard the good
news," he says and I hold the folder in front of me even tighter, trying to keep my face perfectly still and relaxed to not show any weakness. "Sorry. I had no idea that Captain Medvil was going to assign me to this."

  I don't believe him.

  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he had asked for this case in the first place, but I let it slide.

  "Yeah, sure, whatever."

  I sit down in my chair and open the folder.

  "I caught up on it last night. Now you talked to Eve Navarro today, right? What did she say?"

  “Shit,” I say to myself silently.

  Last night, Medvil assigned Thomas to this case and he didn't even tell me until now.

  Why the hell not? I guess because he didn't want me to argue with him for a day, or maybe... I pause for a moment while I think.

  It suddenly occurs to me. Medvil has no idea that we were ever together.

  Typically, police officers who become romantically involved have to file special paperwork with human resources. We never did.

  Right before we were going to file and make it official with the department, I found out the truth about him.

  I haven't told that many people and the two people that do know have promised to keep it a secret. It seemed that Thomas didn't tell many people either, especially since it doesn't make him look too good after what happened with our breakup.

  "Listen, let's just be professional here," Thomas says. "Tell me what Eve Navarro said."

  I furrow my brows.

  By saying let's be professional, he is implying that I am being unprofessional, which couldn't be further from the truth.

  He’s just trying to get a rise out of me.

  "First of all, I'm perfectly fine with you working with me on this," I lie.

  He smiles at me in that casual way almost like he's humoring me.

  "Eve made it seem like there were a number of parties that both Nick and Danny had at their apartments and that both were invited to each. She never met-”

  "So, what do you think it means?" he asks.

  "Probably means that Danny's hiding something."

  "Like what?"

  "Maybe he knows where Nick is now. When I first talked to him, he made it seem like he didn't really know him very well,” I say. "They were neighbors. They saw each other occasionally, but that was it. After talking to Eve, I get the sense that their situation could be a little bit closer. They were acquaintances. They've definitely partied together. I mean, Eve had talked to Danny quite a bit. He seemed to have opened up to her. He told her about his friend who got killed and that how responsible he felt."

  I open my notepad and go through more details from Eve.

  We discuss the strategy, which isn't really a strategy because we don't really know what we're going to do and how we're going to schedule this questioning until we start talking to him.

  This is where interrogation becomes more of an art form. You ask the wrong questions at the wrong time and the person's not going to come forward and is not going to tell you what you want to hear.

  I don't know if Eve would have told Thomas everything that she told me.

  We made a connection.

  She felt like she could trust me and that's what it's all about.

  However, when the person comes in for an interview at the precinct, they're more on guard. They're nervous. It's an official environment and is harder to get people to open up.

  With some who are on the periphery involved with the crime, you can use the weight of the department to push them over the edge and to scare them into telling you the truth.

  But it’s harder to do that with people who are involved. They don't want to implicate themselves.

  They don't want to put themselves where they could be accused of being guilty of something, but they do want to explain.

  They want to draw attention elsewhere.

  I'm not saying that Danny's a suspect. He's anything but that. The main suspect here is Nick, but my suspicion is that Danny is helping him.

  "The way we handle Danny is going to either lead us toward Nick or away from him,” I say.

  "Couldn't agree more," Thomas says with a smile, taking me by surprise.

  "Listen, I've always thought that you were a good cop. That was never our problem.”

  22

  I clench my jaw and I see him see me do this. I hate how vulnerable he makes me feel.

  Just with a few lines of dialogue and suddenly I feel like I'm falling apart, even though on the surface I'm not.

  I don't know if he can read all of my signs. Probably not.

  I would say that most people can't and most people don't even notice all these little twitches, all of these little facial tics and auras that they put out into the world, which I pick up on.

  I can feel the way other people are feeling. At work, it feels like a superpower, but growing up it was more like a burden.

  It has always been something of a gift of mine. Whenever anyone felt awkward or uncomfortable, I felt it. I sympathized and I empathized, but I couldn't get that feeling off of me.

  As I grew up, I learned how to deal with it better.

  I learned to accept it and eventually deflect it. Now, there's almost like this thin shield of plexiglass separating me from the world. I can walk around with it and lift it up whenever I really need to make a connection.

  That's what happened with Eve and that's what I hope will happen in this interrogation room with Danny.

  I'm better at the informal interviews. There are comfortable seats, nice lighting, things to drink and munch on.

  Here with the camera above our heads, it's hard to forget that you're at the police station. It's hard to forget that everything you're saying is being recorded and anyone who's ever seen at least one crime show knows that it's not a good idea to talk to the police.

  "Our best bet," Thomas says, "is to make Danny feel involved, make him feel like he wants to tell us something to help find his friend."

  "What if he is the one hiding him or helping him hide?" I ask.

  "He probably is, but maybe this is his opportunity to draw our attention somewhere else or maybe he'll have some possible explanation for why Janine's body was found in his friend's apartment. If he has an explanation, there'll be more details to help us figure it all out."

  Thomas is not telling me anything that I don't already know.

  We're just brainstorming and coming up with an approach. I take a few big gulps of water before we walk to the interrogation room.

  Danny is already waiting for us.

  I take the lead with as casual of a manner as possible.

  Thomas is an expert at this. Nothing is ever formal or precise, but it's meant to be that way. He comes off even a little bit stupid and that's what makes people think there's no way that he's going to figure anything out.

  "Thanks for inviting me here, Detective Abrams," Danny says. "I'd really like to find my friend."

  That’s kind of a weird statement, but it’s still early in the interrogation to start cataloging unusual comments.

  "Why don't you call us Thomas and Kaitlyn?" I say.

  I want him to think of us as his friends. I want to make him comfortable.

  He nods approvingly and we get started from there.

  Since Thomas is new here, he takes the liberty to ask Danny to go over the testimony that he had given me earlier to check it for any inconsistencies.

  Most of the time the people we interview get a little annoyed when you ask them the same questions over and over again, but that's part of the job.

  You have to make sure that the story stays the same and if it changes, it only changes slightly. We want to make sure that there aren't any glaring inconsistencies, but then again, if the story is exactly the same, verbatim, word for word, that's something to consider a little bit suspicious as well. Maybe in that case, someone memorized something instead of actually experiencing it.

  As we talk to Danny, Thomas does a good job of pla
ying my ignorant friend.

  He acts like he doesn't know much about the case. He asks Danny to pose possible explanations for what could have happened. We act like we're here to ask him for his advice and for his help in figuring out who did it.

  He is very helpful. He tells us a lot but nothing really specifically different. When I confront him about the fact that Eve mentioned that he was closer to Nick that he had led on, he just shrugs it off.

  “What about Janine?” I ask. “Have you met her at one of those parties?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he says.

  “That’s not what you said before.”

  “There were a lot of people there. Anything is possible.”

  We all know what he’s trying to say. He’s trying to give himself an out and give us what we want but not implicate himself too much.

  After we review the case in general and Thomas develops a little bit of a rapport, we finally get to the point.

  "Do you know a guy named Kenny Tuffin?" Thomas asks.

  Danny’s mouth drops open. Blood rushes away from his skin making it appear sallow and greenish.

  "Kenny, who?" he asks, clearing his throat in the middle.

  "Kenny Tuffin," Thomas says, leaning forward over the table. "You must know him."

  "Yeah. Yeah. I kind of know him."

  The wait for the next question is excruciating long and I kind of revel in it.

  "Why did you ask Kenny to withdraw money from Nick's account for you?"

  Danny leans back in his chair.

  He didn't realize that we had gotten that much information and that realization is all over his face.

  Little beads of sweat appear.

  He starts to develop a nervous tic where he clinks his top teeth against the bottom and then tries to hide this fact.

  "What are you talking about?" he asks.

  "We found Kenny on camera withdrawing money," I say, talking slowly and taking in every single one of his expressions.

  Each word feels like a gut punch.

  The friendly happy-go-lucky guy practically disappears from one frame to another.

  "When we talked to him about it, he said that he did it for you. He said he gave you $400 each from three ATMs and you paid him in pizza."