The Question of the Felonious Friend

by E. J. Copperman

  “We are certain that Tyler did not kill Richard,” I said. “The fact that the evidence is not supported with anything we can see on a chart or a video surveillance tape does not diminish the fact that there is indeed evidence.”

  She sat down in Mother’s chair, facing me. This is something Ms. Washburn does when she wants to discuss the intricacies of a question. As long as Mother is not present, it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

  “Is it worthwhile to look for evidence that we can show conclusively?” she asked. It was not an attempt to disagree; it was an honest question.

  “I think not,” I said. “Our burden of proof is not the same as that of a court of law. We have no need to show a judge or jury our evidence; we need only to prove without doubt that the answer to the question is correct, and that will be enough to report to our client.”

  Ms. Washburn frowned. I knew she wanted me to help Tyler avoid imprisonment or if possible trial for the murder of Richard Handy, but that was not what Questions Answered had been hired to do, and she was aware of that. Ms. Washburn forms some emotional ties to clients that I almost always do not. I had no obligation to help Tyler Clayton; my job was to conclusively answer the question his brother had asked. Still, the fact that he had not killed Richard Handy indicated answering the question would be of benefit to Tyler.

  Wisely, Ms. Washburn avoided making an emotional plea. “Shouldn’t we at least call Detective Hessler and inform him that we know who painted the security cameras at the Quik N EZ?” she asked.

  “Actually, yes, we should,” I said. “I hesitate to implicate Molly Brandt in criminal activity, but I think her behavior would probably be seen as too sensitive and difficult by a prosecutor, not worth the time since Molly was not involved in the shooting. Besides, I believe the detective might be less reticent with us if we volunteer help for him. Would you call him, please?”

  But Ms. Washburn shook her head. “You do it,” she said.

  I felt my brow wrinkle. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I’m not always going to be here to do it, and you need to develop the skill.”

  That brought up thoughts I would have preferred to avoid, but I was reasonably sure Ms. Washburn was not suggesting she would leave Questions Answered anytime soon. She tended to act annoyed when I expressed any concern about that issue. “Is this the time for me to work on such an issue?” I asked.

  “Yes. Call. You’re closer to the phone, anyway.” She pointed to the landline we each have on our desks.

  There would be no movement of her position, so I made an involuntary sound in the back of my throat and picked up the receiver. I had Detective Hessler’s phone number listed under contacts on my MacBook Pro, so I accessed and dialed it. Hessler’s voice mail answered after four rings.

  “This is Samuel Hoenig, proprietor of Questions Answered,” I said after the inevitable tone. “I have some information to share regarding Richard Handy’s murder.” Then I reminded the detective of my phone number at the office and disconnected the call. I looked at Ms. Washburn. “Was that satisfactory?” I asked.

  “It was perfect. See how easy it is?”

  “No.”

  Hessler returned the call only two minutes later. He had no doubt been on another call or had been screening his incoming messages. “What’s the information you have to give me?” he asked as soon as he had identified himself.

  Ms. Washburn had insisted I answer this call as well, and since the Caller ID had shown Hessler’s number, I had not resisted. “I have some new information on the person who painted over the security camera lenses before Richard Handy was shot,” I said. “Can you tell me if you have any data regarding the recent seizures of contraband merchandise in Somerset County?”

  “I thought you were calling to tell me something,” Hessler answered. “Why do I have to give you information first?”

  “Because you had promised you would do so when you had the information, and I calculate you would have received it quite some time ago now, but you didn’t call,” I said. “Are you planning to live up to your end of the bargain?”

  “You’re not going to get anywhere impersonating my ex-wife,” Hessler said.

  “I have never met your ex-wife.”

  There was a pause of three seconds. “Fine. I have some data on the seizures, and I’ll give it to you immediately after you tell me about the security cameras.”

  This was not the kind of negotiation I had anticipated, but I looked at Ms. Washburn and she nodded her head to proceed. No doubt she felt we could trust the detective, that he was simply testing us with his insistence that we offer our help first.

  “Very well, detective. The person who painted the camera lenses was not Tyler Clayton. In fact, it was Molly Brandt, who is Tyler’s girlfriend but who had already left the convenience store before the shooting occurred.”

  I could hear the sound of fingers on a keyboard; no doubt Hessler was taking notes as he asked for a spelling on Molly’s name. This surprised me, as I would have thought Hessler had already spoken to Dr. Shean. Perhaps she would not give him the names of people in Tyler’s group, either.

  “How do you know that?” he asked me.

  “Molly told me she did it,” I said. “She has an autism spectrum disorder and believed she was simply engaging in a prank.”

  “What made her think to spray paint security cameras?” Hessler asked.

  “Tyler asked her to do so.”

  Ms. Washburn grimaced. Since she has an agenda and I do not in solving questions, she no doubt felt that this disclosure had weakened Tyler’s case. And perhaps it had. But it was true and it was relevant to Hessler’s case. Withholding it would not have been the right thing to do.

  “So Tyler Clayton was in on the shooting at the convenience store?”

  “He was present; you’ve known that since the beginning. Tyler did indeed ask Molly to spray paint the cameras. We don’t yet know if he was aware there would be a shooting after that or if someone had told him something else.”

  “It’s an awful lot of coincidences,” Hessler said. “You’re asking me to believe this kid showed up at the convenience store with a grudge against Richard Handy, asked his girlfriend—who we didn’t even know about—to paint over the security cameras, and was found with the gun in his hand over Handy’s body, but he didn’t shoot Richard Handy.”

  Ms. Washburn, who could hear the detective on the speakerphone, frowned.

  “I am not asking you to believe anything, detective,” I said. “I am stating the facts as we know them and pointing out the ones for which we do not yet have evidence. Molly says she painted the cameras and there is no reason to disbelieve her so far. She says Tyler asked her to do so. Again, there is no evidence that is not true. But we have proof on the audio tracks of the security cameras that indicates Tyler was not positioned properly to be the shooter. And although Tyler is not communicating verbally, it is clear that he has been covering the tracks of someone else who probably was much closer to the killing than he.”

  “Who?” Kessler asked.

  “That is the question,” I said, quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet, although neither Hessler or Ms. Washburn appeared to notice. “Any number of people could have been involved, but there is not a clear track yet. Can you send Ms. Washburn a digital copy of the audio we heard from the security camera recordings?”

  The detective hesitated. “Why?”

  “Because it might help to answer the question.” I had assumed that was clear.

  “I believe Samuel would like to review the sound and find out if there are any further conclusions he can reach now that we know more,” Ms. Washburn explained for me. Apparently I had not been as direct as I had intended. I nodded thanks to her.

  “All right,” Hessler grumbled. “I’ll e-mail it over, but I’m not crazy about giving that kind of evidence to a civilia
n.”

  “There is no reason to be concerned,” I assured the detective. “You will still have the original source material and can make as many copies as you like. Now, please tell us what the search of seizure information might have yielded.”

  Ms. Washburn walked to my desk and positioned herself closer to my desk telephone so she could better hear the reply. I noticed she had started wearing the wedding ring on her left hand again. That might have some significance. Should I mention what I had observed at Simon’s apartment? Morality was such a confusing concept.

  “Oh, fine.” Hessler sounded as if he were being harassed, rather than carrying out an agreement we had already forged. “There wasn’t a huge haul of anything like what you’re looking for anywhere, but we did pull in three separate shipments in two days. Cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and one other thing—handguns.”

  “Handguns are not sold at convenience stores,” I said to myself.

  “No, they’re not. And that’s what makes this especially interesting. Now, what do you know about this operation?”

  “There is not much I can verify yet,” I told the detective. “There were watermarks in the basement of Billy Martinez that would indicate the presence of what I would imagine were cartons of cigarettes. I did not see anything that would indicate weapons had been stored there, although that does not rule out the possibility.”

  “Martinez is the one who works at the Quik N EZ?” Hessler asked.

  “Yes. You’ll recall I suggested you obtain a warrant for his home to search for signs of tobacco.”

  “Yes, and the county prosecutor reminded me that tobacco is a legal substance and its presence in someone’s basement would not indicate a criminal act. Thanks for that one, Hoenig.”

  “Nonetheless, Billy Martinez was present in the store when Richard Handy was killed, but it is unlikely he was the shooter because the footage shows him at the counter only a second or two before the shots ring out and he would not have been able to get to the dairy display that quickly.” My mind was racing at the inclusion of firearms among the items sold illegally through the convenience store. There had to be some information in that fact that would lead to an answer to Mason’s question.

  “Take a look at the security footage, or at least a listen to it, and get back to me,” Hessler said. “Let me know what you hear and don’t wait to verify anything. Just call me as soon as you listen to it.”

  I looked over at Ms. Washburn, who had returned to her desk and was looking at her computer screen. She looked up at me and nodded. “It’s here,” she said.

  “I will do that, detective,” I said, and disconnected the call. I did not say “good-bye.” Police officers on television and in motion pictures are often pictured as overlooking the normal niceties of social convention when a case is about to be solved. Of course that usually involves danger to at least one of the major characters, but this was reality so I did not concern myself with that convention.

  Ms. Washburn looked up briefly from her screen. “I’ll have that audio up in a second,” she said.

  “No rush,” I told her. “I have it memorized. Right now, I think the most important thing to do is call Mason Clayton.”

  She appeared startled. “Why?”

  “Because Mother was right to wonder why Tyler would have started going to the Quik N EZ. That is the key to this question.”

  “I’ll get him right away,” said Ms. Washburn, reaching for the telephone.

  “No need,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Ms. Washburn and I arrived at Sandy Clayton Webb’s Franklin Township home at 2:26 p.m., having arranged a meeting for 2:30. That, Ms. Washburn and Sandy had agreed, would leave some time before her children arrived home on the school bus. We did not expect the meeting to last long.

  Mason Clayton had been helpful when I’d called him. He had confirmed, as I’d suspected, that Tyler had not been drawing upon any Able Home Help funds to pay the $100 tips he would leave for Richard Handy every day at the Quik N EZ. Mason had no idea where Tyler might be acquiring so much cash, particularly since his job at the Microchip Mart had been cutting back on his hours for three months before the shooting incident had taken place.

  Sandy opened the door immediately when Ms. Washburn pressed the button for the bell, as if she had been waiting in the front window watching us approach. She smiled when she greeted us with an expression that seemed practiced but not without emotion. I simply could not determine which emotion was being expressed.

  “You said on the phone you have new information,” she said, ushering us into her very tidy living room. “What have you found out?”

  “Why did you give Tyler one hundred dollars per day to put into the tip jar at the Quik N EZ?” I asked. Clearly some rule of social discourse had been violated because both Sandy and Ms. Washburn appeared somewhat surprised by my question, and I had expected only Sandy’s expression to change.

  “I beg your pardon?” Sandy croaked. She did not ask us to sit down.

  “The key is that Tyler ever knew Richard Handy at all,” I said. “He lives with your brother Mason in Franklin Township. It is three-point-four miles from Mason’s home to the Quik N EZ in Somerset. But the convenience store is only a seven-block walk from here and it’s much faster if someone is driving you. So we can assume that your brother Tyler knew Richard Handy through visits to the Quik N EZ that started here at your house. Isn’t that correct?”

  Sandy’s eyes were trying very hard to look intimidating but the effect was considerably less so than she might have hoped. “So what?” she said. “So Tyler comes over here sometimes and he walks to the convenience store. How does that lead to me giving him all kinds of money to put in the tip jar?”

  “That was the question we had to answer.” Ms. Washburn, having recovered from her reaction to what I can only assume was an abrupt change of tone on my part, stood tall. “So we called Mason and asked him about the finances of Able Home Help.”

  Sandy’s lip curled. “He’s going bankrupt,” she said.

  “Interesting you should say that,” I answered. “When we first met less than a week ago, you said Mason worked for a company that power washes homes. You did not mention that the company also did home contracting, or that Mason owned the business. And you failed to say that Tyler owns part of the company too.”

  “I’ll ask again: so what?”

  Ms. Washburn took a step toward Sandy to better make her point. “So, that means you were concealing some information about Mason’s finances. And when we asked him why you might want to do that, he said you might have been covering up the fact that you’d loaned Able Home Help some fifty thousand dollars to stay in business, only three months ago. Did that slip your mind?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass Mason by saying his sister had to bail him out of a business that should be thriving except for his bad management,” Sandy said. She also stood tall and seemed to feel she was in direct competition with Ms. Washburn. She did not alter her gaze.

  “Where’d you get the money?” Ms. Washburn asked. “You were looking for work and were coming off a divorce. Your husband didn’t pay you nearly that much in alimony or child support. Where did the fifty grand come from?”

  There was a certain interest in watching the two women contest each other. Since Ms. Washburn was asking the questions I would have offered, but doing so with a considerably more combative attitude than I probably could have mustered, I stood back and waited to see how the scene would resolve itself.

  “I had some savings. I’m really starting to get tired of this. You come in here accusing me of … something, and you have no proof. So I loaned Mason some money. What’s that got to do with Tyler and these crazy tips he’s handing out? And even if I had given him the money for those, what’s the problem? It’s not illegal to over tip, is it?”

  Ms. Washbur
n seemed to hesitate, so I answered without changing my position in the room. The body language and physical dynamics were interesting to study, so I tried not to disturb them.

  “No, it is not,” I said. “But if the tips were meant to help finance an operation that was selling merchandise that was not listed on the books of the Quik N EZ, and if some of those items included firearms, that would certainly be illegal, and might even be considered a federal crime. So Detective Hessler has alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and we are here to see if you can extricate yourself from that investigation by telling us what actually happened, and how it led to Richard Handy being murdered.”

  Sandy’s eyes were very wide now and her neck muscles barely moved. She was still looking in Ms. Washburn’s direction and seemed incapable of turning her head. Her teeth did not clench, but her jaw was very tight as she spoke.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” Ms. Washburn answered. “Someone was selling cigarettes and handguns and other items through the Quik N EZ and they weren’t listing those items on the books. It’s illegal to sell guns at that kind of store in New Jersey anyway. You have income you can’t explain, enough to give Mason fifty thousand dollars and still live in this house despite the fact that you only have one income now that your husband is gone and you’ve been looking for work. Somehow Tyler had enough money to tip his supposed friend Richard at least five hundred dollars a week. He didn’t get that from his job and he didn’t get it from Mason. The only person left who could have supplied that money was you.”