by A. E. Howe
“No one else is to know for now,” Dad said.
“But that’s going to make it very difficult to keep Matt at a safe distance,” I argued.
“If he’s guilty then there might be others, and we don’t want to give them any warning. And if he’s innocent, it would be unfair for us to undermine his reputation as a very good investigator.”
So it was our little secret, and we were waiting and watching. It was unsettling to sit beside Matt almost every day, suspecting that he had a secret of his own that he was keeping from all of us. In my mind that secret could be summed up in one word: betrayal.
Now I entered the building and waved at the desk sergeant before passing through the set of inner doors that led to the criminal investigations department and, eventually, Dad’s office. Before I reached my desk I heard a commotion and walked down the hall to see a man pacing outside of the sheriff’s door.
“I want to see him, now!” yelled an agitated, blond-haired man.
“I can’t let you go in there,” Dad’s assistant responded, sounding harried.
“I don’t give a damn what you say.”
I came up behind the man and cleared my throat loudly. “Can I help you?” I said firmly, using my best I’m in charge here voice.
The man turned around. He was a couple inches taller than me and wore a blue work shirt and jeans. His eyes were sunken and his face was red from a volatile mix of emotions.
“I want to see the sheriff. He let that killer loose!” he yelled at me, holding his large, calloused hands up in front of me, clearly more in frustration than as any real threat.
“And you are?”
“I’m Allen Maitland. Who the hell are you?”
Damn. Angie Maitland’s husband. What a way to start the morning. “I’m Deputy Larry Macklin. Mr. Maitland, let’s go over to the conference room. We need to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t want to answer any of your questions. What’s the use? Angie’s dead because… Wait… Macklin? Are you related to the sheriff?” His eyes were slits and his face looked like it was ready to explode.
“I’m his son. And if you’ll just let me ask you a few questions, I’ll ask my father to come out and talk with you.”
“You sons of bitches! How could you let that rapist go? What the hell were you people thinking?” I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but his face was getting even redder. His hands went up again and I prepared myself to take him down if I had to.
“Let’s talk about this. We can…”
I could tell from his eyes that he wasn’t even hearing me. His body tensed as he prepared to launch himself at me. But before he could move, the door to Dad’s office opened and a black bear launched itself into the hallway. Okay, it wasn’t actually a black bear. But it was Mauser.
Maitland must have caught sight of Mauser’s charge out of the corner of his eye because he whirled around and let out a small shriek. Mauser was delighted to meet someone new and proceeded to bounce off of Maitland before coming over to me for a quick hello. Then he circled Maitland a couple more times before deciding the new man must want to scratch him. He stopped beside him and leaned in.
Maitland was speechless. Now that Mauser’s antics had come to an end, we all noticed Dad standing in the doorway. He walked over to Maitland and put out his hand. Whether Maitland was still in shock over Mauser or was just taken aback by the offered hand I don’t know, but after a brief pause he took it.
“I’m deeply sorry for your loss.” From the tone of Dad’s voice, it was obvious this was more than a polite convention. I knew he was thinking of my mother. It had taken months for him to shake off his own depression after her sudden death, and only my suggestion that he run for sheriff—an idea she had joked with him about for years—had finally pulled him out of it.
Dad’s sincerity struck a cord with Allen Maitland and his anger gave way to tears. Dad awkwardly patted him on the shoulder while Mauser leaned into him more insistently. Giving in to his grief, Maitland bent down and hugged the big dog as he cried. Finally, his emotions back under control, he stood up straight and looked Dad in the eye.
“Why did you let him go?” While he was calmer, the anger was not far below the surface.
“After we conducted a thorough investigation, I genuinely believed that he was not a suspect in the rapes,” Dad answered, looking directly into Maitland’s eyes.
“You were wrong,” Maitland said.
“We are investigating what happened to your wife and to Jeffrey Ayers. If I was wrong, I think you can rest assured that I will no longer be sheriff.” Dad’s delivery was flat and emotionless, belying the pain that I knew he was feeling.
Maitland was surprised by his bluntness. “I would hope so,” he said, his anger spent.
“But now we could use your help.” Dad turned to me. “Is Pete in yet?”
“He should be here soon.”
“Take Mr. Maitland over to the conference room and wait for him.” He turned back to Maitland. “Again, I’m deeply sorry about what happened to your wife. You have my word that we won’t stop looking until we’ve uncovered the complete truth about the circumstances surrounding her murder.”
“If you’ll come this way,” I said, gently guiding Maitland’s elbow. He hesitated for a moment, then turned and followed me to the conference room. I looked back over my shoulder to see Dad standing with his hand on Mauser’s back, a mix of emotions in his eyes.
Chapter Four
I texted Pete to warn him about what he was walking into and asked him to hurry. Fifteen minutes later we were both sitting across from Maitland, conscious of the man’s fresh grief, but anxious to get the interview over with.
“I want to warn you that some of the questions I have to ask might offend you,” Pete started. “I’m sorry for that and there’s no disrespect to your wife intended. I don’t think your wife did anything wrong, but I simply have to ask specific questions. Okay?”
Maitland looked unsure, but nodded. “Whatever I can do to help figure this all out,” he said softly.
“Why was your wife out at that hour of the night?”
“She’s the manager at Buster’s. She was in charge of closing up last night.”
“What time did they close?”
“Ten. It takes her and the closing crew about an hour to clean up, count the registers and get everything ready for the morning crew. Then she goes to the bank and makes the deposit.”
Her car had been found at the bank this morning. I made a note to check and see if the deposit had been made.
“Did you notice that your wife was late?”
“No.” Maitland had trouble admitting this. “I get up early for my job so I don’t usually wait up for her. I guess I was sleeping pretty soundly when one of your deputies knocked on our door.”
“Can anyone else confirm that you were at home between eleven o’clock and midnight?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Pete made a calming motion with his hands. “I told you, we have to ask the same questions that we would ask if this was a standard murder investigation. It doesn’t mean that we suspect you of anything. We’re just doing what you would want us to do, thoroughly investigate the murder of your wife.”
“Yeah, I get that, but…”
“Is there anyone who can confirm you were home?”
“Maybe. We live in Spring Creek, so you know the houses are pretty close together. My truck was in our driveway. One of the neighbors may have seen it.”
I doubted it. People don’t really notice the normal things around their neighborhood. It’s only the unusual that stands out. But maybe… We’d have to canvass the neighbors. It seemed like overkill to me, though. It was hard to imagine a scenario where Maitland killed his wife that also involved Ayers and the convenient arrival of a sheriff’s deputy. Big stretch.
“Do you know Deputy Nichols?” Pete asked.
“No. But my wife did know one of the deputies. S
he went to school with him. He was…” Maitland choked up.
“Deputy Ortiz, yes, we know. Did you or your wife know Jeffrey Ayers?”
“No!” Anger again.
“Did you all hear about the assaults and his arrest?”
“Of course. And I had warned her to be careful. I should have done more. I just didn’t think that…” His voice drifted off.
“Thank you, Mr. Maitland. We may have a few more questions for you later, but that’s all for now.” Pete took out his card and turned it over, writing a number on the back and handing the card to Maitland. “That’s my cell phone number on the back. Call me if you think of anything or need something.”
“When will her… body… When can we bury her?”
“There has to be an autopsy, but it shouldn’t be more than a day or two at most. I’ll check with the coroner and get back with you as soon as possible.”
We walked Maitland back to the lobby in silence and watched him walk out of the building, his shoulders hunched. As we headed back to our desks in CID, I saw Matt come out of the bathroom and walk to his desk near mine.
“Let’s go back to the conference room and talk a little,” I suggested to Pete.
Startled, he asked, “Why not go to our desks?”
“I don’t want to be distracted by phones and co-workers,” I said. What I really didn’t want was for Matt to overhear us. I wasn’t sure why. There was the obvious reason of Matt being friends with Chief Maxwell and me wanting this case to have as little impact on the election as possible, so the less Maxwell heard, the better. But it was more than that. Something just felt odd about this murder and the shooting. And since I was sure that Matt was working behind our backs, I just felt it would be best to keep the two separate.
I hated keeping Pete in the dark about it, but I’d promised Dad not to share our suspicions about Matt with anyone else. Luckily Pete was an easygoing guy, so if I suggested talking in the conference room he wouldn’t bust my balls about it.
“It’s not easy working this way,” Pete said, dropping back down into a chair. I knew what he meant. Normally we went our separate ways on a case and then came back and compared notes. If we went together to interview witnesses or suspects, I usually took the lead and he listened and observed.
“Yeah, but Dad’s right on this one.”
“I know.” Pete started to take out his cell phone, but saw the look on my face and left it in his pocket. “You want my first impression?”
“I don’t know, do I?” I made the effort to joke and even managed a little smile.
“It’s probably what you’re looking for. Long and short, I don’t like it.”
“What part?”
“That’s harder to say. The coincidence. Nichols finds them just after Ayers kills her? But Ayers didn’t kill any of the other women he raped. If he was the rapist at all. Which I’m still not sold on. We were all part of the rape task force, or at least sat in on some of the interviews. I agreed with your father. Ayers was clear as far as I was concerned. So there’s that, but there’s something else too.” He got quiet and stared down at the table.
“What?” I prodded.
“The clean shots.”
“What?”
“Nichols comes up on a murder in progress, something he wasn’t expecting. It’s dark, with only his car’s headlights to see by. And that light casts some very bright spots, but it also creates shadows in other places. He sees a man that he can’t even be sure is a suspect… Hell, Nichols can’t even be sure that a crime is in progress. Anyway, so the man turns and charges him with a knife. Now we’re supposed to believe that Nichols had the presence of mind and the skill to draw his gun and fire two rounds—only two rounds—and that each of them hit their target?” He shook his head.
Pete was the department’s firearms instructor. Not only was he the best shot with a rifle or pistol that we had, but he was excellent at taking a poor shooter under his wing, evaluating what they were doing wrong and helping them to correct it.
“When you put it like that, it seems unlikely.”
“Under those circumstances even a great shooter would have difficulty. You know. Shooting a gun accurately is not as easy as people think. Even people who shoot regularly and are good at it are thrown off when they’re moving, shooting at a moving target, or when it’s dark. Nichols had to deal with all three. I just don’t think he could do it. Trust me, he just barely meets his qualifications each year.”
“So if Nichols is lying…”
“Exactly. Everything falls apart.”
When Pete said that I realized just how big a mess this could be. I couldn’t decide if this would make things easier or harder for Dad. Right now it looked like the whole department was coming unraveled.
“You know what you’re saying?” I asked him.
“I’m accusing a fellow deputy of lying and possibly murdering a suspect. Yes, I know exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“There are other questions too. If Ayers forced Angie Maitland into his car at the bank, why did he leave his car out in front of the shopping center? Why not pull around back?” I pointed out.
“Why force her into his car at all? He didn’t do that with any of the other victims. He always attacked them quickly and assaulted them from behind so they couldn’t see his face. And why kill her?” Pete pondered out loud.
“Maybe she saw him during the initial assault, which forced him to change his plans. He forced her into his car and realized that, having seen him, he’d have to kill her. Or maybe he planned on killing her from the beginning. Rapists sometimes turn into kidnappers or murderers.”
“So did Nichols lie about how he shot him?” Pete asked.
“Maybe Nichols came upon the scene like he said, but Ayers surrendered. When Nichols saw what Ayers had done to Maitland, he went into a rage and killed Ayers in cold blood. Realizing what he did, he makes up a story of self defense,” I suggested.
“I like that scenario. Not that it helps your dad. But at least it makes Nichols’s motives understandable and more in line with the deputy I know.”
“I agree.”
“We’ll get some direction from the ballistics. Once we confirm that they’re Nichols’s bullets and at what distances and angles they were fired from, we’ll have a better picture of what happened.”
“True. Do you want to call Dr. Darzi’s office?”
“You have a better relationship with him.”
“But you’re the lead investigator.”
“Exactly, and I’m delegating the responsibility of contacting the coroner’s office and prodding them into getting the autopsies done as quickly as possible to you.” Game, set and match to Pete.
“Fine.” I took out my cell phone. After a brief exchange with the most recent intern answering the phone, I hung up. “Dr. Darzi slept in. He’s scheduled the two autopsies back to back starting at two.”
“Gives us some time. We need to canvass the houses on the street alongside the store. Someone might have seen something. Also need to check the CCTV cameras around the bank and the grocery.”
“I’ll take the bank and any other CCTV that might have caught Ayers’s or Maitland’s cars.”
“Don’t forget Nichols’s patrol car.”
“Damn. Which means we need to get his dash cam footage.”
“No. I checked last night when you were talking to your dad. Nichols’s camera has been out for a week. He reported it when he realized it.”
“A week ago?”
“Yep.”
“How ’bout the dispatch recordings?”
“I called them last night and had them save the data. IT is coming in to make copies of everything.”
“Okay. Meet you back here at one and we’ll ride to the hospital together?”
Pete nodded and we headed our separate ways, making everything feel normal, if only for a moment.
Chapter Five
It was a mix of luck at the bank. The ATM’s camera co
nfirmed that Angie had made the deposit. A CCTV camera in the parking lot even caught footage of her car. But that was the extent of the good luck. After she’d made her deposit, the ATM video showed Angie glancing to her left as though she saw something—or someone—but then she walked off the screen to the left and there was nothing else to see.
I scanned the rest of the footage from both cameras and saw plenty of other people and cars, but there was no sign of Ayers. At one point Nichols’s patrol car could be seen driving through the parking lot, but it was almost an hour before Angie Maitland made her deposit. Nothing unusual at all about a deputy on patrol cruising through a bank’s parking lot at night. It’s what they do.
Armed with copies of the bank videos, I drove slowly back to the office, taking the time to scope out the most direct routes between the bank and the shopping center. I took note of all the places along the routes that might have their own CCTV cameras. A lot of businesses have them these days—car lots, minute markets, fast food joints. My list had over a dozen places that would need to be checked. The trouble was, we didn’t have much time to get them. A lot of places just recorded back over old footage once the tape or hard drive was full.
I called dispatch and had them patch me through to Deputy Mark Edwards. He was one of the smarter and more reliable deputies we had. I asked him to check all the locations on my list and to get copies of all footage between nine and two in the morning from the night before.
It was a long drive to the hospital in Tallahassee. You would think that a deputy would know better, but I’d had to lay down the law with Pete when we first started working together—no texting while driving. The first time he did it with me in the car, Pete tried to insist that he was just reading the messages. It got ugly, but he finally saw reason. Now he just fidgeted the whole time he was driving.
“You know, when we’re in our patrol cars we’re constantly reading the information that comes up on our laptops. What’s the difference if I just read the occasional message?”
