by Paul Bishop
“You remember a lot about this stuff,” Colby said.
“It was the most high-profile case of my mediocre career. I researched the whole setup to make sure I wasn't missing anything to come back and haunt me later. I never figured on the victim still being alive, though.”
“Isaac had to start borrowing against the business to keep his new wife in bubbles and Brie?” Fey asked, hoping to get MacGregor rolling again.
“Familiar story?”
“I've run across it,” Fey said. “Did Roark—the business partner—know about the new money problems?”
“Claimed he didn't, but it's hard to tell. A year and a half after the marriage, the Cordell's Furniture store down in the Tenderloin district burned down. It was well insured, but the insurance company was screaming about paying up.”
“There was an arson report in the package sent to us.”
“It was arson, all right. The problem was proving Cordell or his partner did it. They both denied the charges vehemently, but the motive was obvious. They needed the insurance money to keep the other two stores running. Both men, however, had alibis. The arson squad squeezed a few of the local firebugs, but none of them coughed.”
“A dead end.”
“For the arson squad. But we were able to get the case introduced in court as evidence to show a pattern of monetary desperation.”
“How did you slip it by his lawyer?”
“Wasn't hard. By the time the case got to court, Cordell was so broke, he had a public defender. It was the PD's first murder case. She didn't know whether she was coming or going. I wouldn't want to try it now, though. From what I hear, the woman has turned into a real barracuda.”
“What about the murder itself?” Fey asked
“Isaac said he and Miriam had taken The Missy out for a chug across the bay.”
“How could Cordell afford to run a motor cruiser if his business was going down the tubes?” Colby jumped into the conversation again.
“He was trying to keep up appearances to the end. It was something I didn’t like about the case. I think the guy truly loved his wife like he loved his mother. He was wound around her little finger. My gut instinct was murdering her was the furthest thing from his mind. He was trying too hard to hang on to her. The boat was due to be repossessed, his Cadillac was leased, and everything he had was mortgaged to the hilt—the house, the businesses, everything—all to keep Miriam in style.”
“The court didn't buy the scenario?”
“No. My partner and the district attorney figured it was a reason to get rid of her. When all the other evidence was in, I had to agree.”
“Without the body, it must have been a tough case to prove,” Fey said, trying to imagine herself confronted with the same set of circumstances.
“Not as tough as you might expect. The circumstantial evidence was solid.”
“Are you talking about the million-dollar insurance policy Cordell had on his wife?” Fey asked, referring to the information she'd picked up from the reports.
“Yeah,” MacGregor said. “The policy had been taken out a year earlier and the premiums were up-to-date. Cordell denied any knowledge of the policy. We looked into it, but everything was in order. Miriam had a full medical to qualify for the policy and all the paperwork and premium checks were signed by Cordell. Cordell denied knowing anything about the account the checks to pay the premiums were drawn on, but his signature was all over the paperwork.”
“Forgeries,” Fey said.
“We didn't think so at the time,” MacGregor said. “But if you say the victim was still alive until yesterday, I'd have to agree with you.”
“What other evidence did you have?” Colby asked.
“The biggest thing was the SOS Miriam put out over the international distress channel. She and Cordell were on the bay when Miriam sent an interrupted message giving the name of their boat and said her husband was trying to kill her. The Coast Guard and half the boats in the bay converged on the scene. They found Cordell in the middle of a tizzy-fit, claiming his wife had fallen overboard.”
“Nobody bought the story?” Fey said.
“Not after the distress message. Things got even blacker for Cordell when the harbor police did an inventory of the boat before impounding it. There was no anchor or anchor chain on board. They also conducted an extensive search for the body, dragging several areas of the bay. Obviously, they had no success.” MacGregor paused for a few seconds and there was the sound of a cigarette being lit. Fey felt the urge surge through her body anew.
There was a long exhale before MacGregor picked up his tale. “When the case was turned over to us, we found out about the insurance policy, the arson, the business problems, and the extent of Cordell's financial straits. We had a ton of motive. Then Roark came forward and nailed Cordell's hide.”
“Roark was the business partner?” Colby asked, trying to keep everything straight.
“Yeah.” MacGregor confirmed. “On the day after we get the case, Roark strolls into the office and tells us Cordell told him he was planning kill Miriam for the insurance money to save the business. Roark claimed he told Cordell he was crazy, never dreaming he would follow through.”
“I imagine Cordell denied it,” Fey said.
“Wouldn't you?” MacGregor asked. “The jury didn't buy the denial, and the rest of the evidence was solid. Cordell bought a life sentence, and we moved on to the next case with everyone telling us what a great job we did.”
“Cut and dried,” Colby said.
“Yeah, but you haven't heard the best part.”
“What?” Fey and Colby asked in unison.
“Cordell couldn't get the insurance money, of course, because he'd been done for the murder.”
“So?”
“There was a second beneficiary on the policy who walked away with a cool million.”
“Let me guess,” Fey said, her mind jumping ahead to the various possibilities. “The business partner— Roark.”
MacGregor chuckled. “Yep.”
“Where is he now?” Fey asked.
“No idea. Sold off the furniture stores, paid off the creditors, and got out of Dodge.”
“What about Cordell?” Fey asked. “He's going to be surprised to find the woman he's spent the last ten years in jail for murdering was alive until yesterday.”
“Doubt he'll be surprised,” MacGregor replied. “He said all along he didn't kill her.”
“Where's he doing time?”
There was a pause before MacGregor replied again. “Don't you know?” he asked eventually.
“Know what?”
“It made the papers up here. Some hotshot lawyer started championing his case about a year ago. She did a lot of rabble-rousing, getting people all shook up. Finally managed to get the parole board to review the case.”
“And?” The anticipation in Fey's voice was clear.
“Cordell was paroled six weeks ago,” MacGregor said, with the satisfaction of a consummate storyteller bringing his tale to a close. “If I were him, knowing I hadn't killed my wife, I'd be pissed off and looking for the bitch.”
Chapter 13
“This thing is more complicated by the minute,” Lieutenant Cahill said with a shake of his head. Fey had finished explaining the details of the San Francisco murder case she'd picked up from Card MacGregor. “What do you think happened in Frisco? Collusion between the wife and the business partner—a twist on Double Indemnity?”
“Probably,” Fey said. She was sitting in one of the chairs surrounding the circular conference table in Cahill's office. Colby was sitting two chairs away. Cahill was behind his desk. “When you accept his wife didn't die, you can see how the circumstantial evidence could have been manufactured.”
Fey had spent another twenty minutes on the phone getting Card MacGregor to fill in more of the details surrounding the investigation, the trial and conviction of Isaac Cordell, and the connections to Adam Roark, Isaac's business partner.
<
br /> Colby left the conversation and started following up on the information MacGregor had already provided. His first call was to the state parole board. After being shuffled around from extension to extension and listening to seven minutes and fifty-six seconds worth of Muzak, he obtained the information Isaac Cordell had been paroled to the Los Angeles office. His supervising parole agent was Patty Kline.
Kline was out of her office, but Colby forced the issue, convincing the parole office switchboard to contact Kline through her pager. Between computers, cellular phones, pagers, Colby wondered how police work was ever accomplished in an earlier age.
However, he realized bad guys made as much use of modern technology as the police. It was move and countermove. Every time the bad guys came up with a new scam, the good guys had to find a way to outmaneuver it.
Electronic gizmos only made the scams more complex. They didn't change the face of crime. It was still nothing more than an attempt to get something for nothing, no matter what the cost to someone else. It was the job of the police to turn nothing into a very high price.
Cops and robbers. Robbers and cops. It was a balancing game played on a high wire, but the scales were currently weighed in the robbers’ favor. If the game didn't turn around soon, civilization would fall off the high wire with no safety net below.
Kline return Colby’s call within five minutes, indicating she was new on the job. Most old-timers would have ignored the page, or waited till the second or third call. On the phone, though, Patty Kline was efficient and no-nonsense. She immediately grasped the significance of the situation and swung into action.
As soon as she got to her desk, she would fax Colby the file photos of Cordell, then head to the station to help follow-up. Colby thanked her. He also thanked the gods there were still people who cared about doing a good job.
Cahill sat at his desk thinking. Colby had filled him in on the facts of Cordell's parole and current residence in a halfway house in the southeast end of the division known as The Hood.
“There's a lot of loose ends,” Cahill said after a minute. “We know anything about this lawyer who swung Cordell's parole?”
Fey shrugged. “Not yet. MacGregor said her name is Janice Ryder and put her in her early thirties. She made a name for herself in the San Francisco Public Defender's Office before switching to the District Attorney's Office and finally private practice. MacGregor has been on both sides with her and liked it a lot better when they were both on the same team.”
“When did she hook into Cordell's case?”
“A year ago, right after she went into private practice. She did doing it pro bono because Cordell didn't have anything left. She finally won the parole judgment six weeks ago.”
Cahill picked up Fey’s thread, “Next thing you know, the wife he supposedly murdered turns up dead under another name not five miles away from the parole halfway house where Cordell is living.”
“Stinks, doesn't it?” Fey said.
“Like a wet hound dog.” Cahill gave away some of his good-ol'-boy origins. “What about the business partner?”
“We don't have a line on Roark yet. If he's still around and found out about Cordell being paroled, he could have panicked and done the victim in to protect himself.”
“What name was she using?”
“Goodwinter.”
“If Goodwinter only slipped into this new identity a few weeks ago, she could also have known Cordell was out—changed identities so he couldn't find her.”
“Then why didn't she clear out of town?” Colby asked.
Cahill shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she knew he was paroled and had no idea he'd been relocated to LA.”
Fey stood up, gathering the papers in front of her. “We aren't going to solve this by guessing. We better start running down all the loose ends. Is the parole agent here?”
Colby nodded. “Ten minutes ago. She's ready to do an unannounced parole check on Cordell and search his pad. We're invited along.”
Fey smiled. “No warrant necessary when a suspect is tied to the parole yo-yo.”
“First break since we found the body,” agreed Cahill.
There was a knock and Monk Lawson stuck his head into the office. His grin was wide and white.
“Bingo,” he said, stepping completely into the room.
He held up the six-pack photo lineup with Cordell's picture in the number two position, surrounded by five look-alikes. It was a bleak photo, but good enough for having come off the fax machine.
When Fey had first seen the head-and-shoulders shot, she realized Isaac had picked up some habits in the pen his mother wouldn't have approved. He was a big man, but now he was prison-big—pumped up by empty hours of pushing iron and doses of smuggled steroids. The frame of the photo lineup covered the white power prison tattoo on Cordell's massive chest, which indicated the choice he made to survive inside.
“I tracked down the condo complex security guards,” Monk said. “Unfortunately, none of them were able to identify Cordell.”
“Too bad,” Fey said. “It would have been nice to come up with a witness who could place Cordell at the scene.”
“We have,” Monk reported with a smile.
Fey looked confused.
“The guards couldn't identify him, but I found someone who could.” Monk smiled again. “I did another door-to-door through the complex and found an old lady neighbor who watches the street like a hawk. She picked Cordell out of the lineup immediately, and she can place him at the scene on the night of the murder.”
“Great work,” Fey said, beating Cahill to the punch this time.
The three detectives looked expectantly at their lieutenant.
“Pull him in,” Cahill said, after a beat. “Take the full team. Wear your vests.”
Chapter 14
When Etta Cinque opened the door of her two-story boardinghouse, she immediately knew it was the man standing on the doorstep.
“Whaa choo wan?” she asked Colby, breathing whiskey fumes into his face.
Colby hadn't been prepared for the vision of womanhood standing before him. He figured Etta tipped the scales at close to 350 pounds. At slightly over five foot in height, she was almost as wide as she was tall.
The landlady's skin was a deep, shiny black with dark purple highlights. The tone clashed horribly with her bright orange housecoat. She wore an ill-fitting wig above day-old makeup. She hadn't taken a bath in a week because she hated getting in and out of her showerless tub.
Etta ran the residence as a halfway-house for ex-cons trying to readjust to society. The state paid her a monthly fee. Her boarders were also required to make up the remainder of the rent. The situation kept Etta well stocked with microwave dinners, chocolate, and whiskey, but it didn't mean she always felt like cooperating.
“I ax you whaa choo wan, white boy. Whaa the man wan here?”
“Isaac Cordell,” Colby said, reading all the trouble signs flowing from Etta's hostile presence. “We understand he rents a room here.”
“You can unnerstan whaaever choo wan, but you ain't comin' in witout no warrant.”
“You've been watching too much TV, lady,” Colby said coldly. “We don't need a warrant. Mr. Cordell's parole officer is with us. She can search his room any time.”
“Colby!” Fey yelled from behind him.
Her shout was unnecessary. As soon as Colby saw Etta start to close the door, he slammed his shoulder into it. The speed of his reaction caught Etta off guard. When the door smashed into her, she staggered back like a wayward bowling ball hunting for the gutter.
“Which room?” Colby demanded.
Patty Kline answered in a shout from behind Fey. “Second floor. Third door on the left.” Cordell's parole officer had been to the halfway-house twice before.
Fey followed Colby into the residence and was right behind him, pounding up the rickety stairs to the second floor. The house was dank and dark, smelling of greasy food, human sweat, and an overlaying odor of ca
t piss.
Hatch and Monk remained outside the house—Monk in front, Hatch to the rear. It was a standard setup. They knew they needed to cover all exits because ex-cons were unpredictable. Even if they were clean, they would run on the slightest provocation. It was a survival instinct gained through osmosis while in the pen.
On the hallway landing, Colby moved quickly to one side of Cordell's door. His right hand held his 9-mm in the low-ready position. With his left hand, he tried the door handle.
Locked.
Fey eased past Colby to take a covering position on the other side of the door. Her .38 was out of its shoulder holster, nestled in her left hand. Before leaving the station, she'd changed into jeans, a sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and a police raid jacket. A wide leather belt around her waist supported handcuffs, speedy loaders, a can of tear gas, and her Rover radio.
Knocking sharply on the door with the knuckles of her right hand, she called out, “Cordell! Police officers! Open the door!”
There was a loud scuffing noise from inside. Without waiting, Colby moved in front of the door, raised his knee, and kicked out. His Italian loafer slammed into the door above the lock. The force of the kick tore the sole half off the soft leather shoe while splintering the doorframe as the dead bolt burst loose. The door sprung in two inches before coming to an abrupt halt as it banged against a hidden obstacle.
“It’s blocked!” Colby yelled. He hit the door with his shoulder, but it only gave another inch. “Crap!” he said as a splinter of wood tore a hole in his jacket.
The sound of breaking glass came from inside the room.
“Don't be an idiot, Cordell!” Colby yelled. “Give it up!”
Fey keyed the transmit button on her Rover. “Hatch! He's coming your way.”
Colby hit the door again, but it still wouldn't give. Turning, he started back down the stairs, running straight into the awesome bulk of Etta Cinque. This time she was ready for him. Colby bounced off her as if he'd been hit by an entire NFL defensive front line.
