by Becky Durfee
“Is he okay?” Jenny asked Elijah, who was seated to her right as they watched the video.
Elijah only shook his head. “I don’t know for sure what the deal is with him, but clearly something isn’t right.”
Jenny heard Elijah ask Phillip to state his name on the video; this seemingly simple command proved to be extremely difficult for him. After quite a bit of stammering, he meekly said, “Phillip Grandby.”
She looked at Elijah with awe. “How come this guy’s name never came up before?”
“He’s not normally like this,” Elijah said.
Jenny turned her focus back to the screen, discovering the interview became no less painful to watch as time went on. After very few basic questions the interview concluded, and Elijah informed Phillip that he was free to go.
“I had to be careful with this interview,” Elijah noted. “It’s obvious he’s mentally ill, or at the very least mentally unstable. I don’t want to be accused of bullying this guy into a confession in any way. I need to find out what medical care he’s receiving—if any—and make sure I operate within the bounds of decency. If that means having a lawyer or psychiatrist present before I proceed, then that’s what I’ll have to do.”
Still disturbed by the video, Jenny posed, “Do you think he’s violent?”
“Well, we know he’s violent,” Elijah said, “based on his arrest record. It’s just a matter of how much provocation it takes to get him going.”
“You don’t suppose you were in any danger in there, do you?”
“I’m not sure. It didn’t appear so, but I don’t know what his triggers are. But…the reason I have you here is to ask if Lena is saying anything to you.”
Jenny shook her head and whispered, “No, she isn’t. But I’m becoming increasingly convinced that video won’t invoke a response from her.”
Elijah’s cell phone rang on his hip; he answered with authority in his voice. “Murphy.”
Although the phone was against Elijah’s ear, Jenny could still hear the man yelling on the other end loud and clear. “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter 16
Jenny’s eyes widened as Elijah asked, “Who is this?” He put his finger to his lips as he turned on the speaker for Jenny to hear.
“It’s Larry Goldberg.”
“And just what have I done to make you so upset, Larry Goldberg?”
“Did you really bring Phillip into the station and question him. Really?”
“Yes,” Elijah said calmly and professionally, “I had reason to believe he might be useful in my murder investigation.”
Larry was clearly still upset. “Do you know how traumatic that was for him?”
Jenny’s level of respect for Elijah escalated as she saw how emotionless he remained. “I do now. Honestly, Larry, I didn’t know there were any issues with Phillip until I got him into the station. As soon as I figured it out, I stopped the interview. I only asked him basic questions, like his name, age and address. Then I let him go.”
The long silence on the other end of the phone implied that Larry was calming down. “It still spooked him,” he eventually replied with a much less confrontational tone.
“I’m sorry for that,” Elijah said. Jenny flashed him a subtle smile, although he didn’t look up to see it.
“He’s just really fragile, you know?” Larry continued. “And he’s been doing so well lately. I’m afraid this is going to set him back quite a bit.”
“I understand that,” Elijah said. “But unfortunately I do need to get him in here and ask him some questions. We have reason to believe that Lena had been in front of his house shortly before she’d been killed, and he may have been witness to something. He might be able to offer critical insight into her case.”
Jenny found it odd that he was taking this approach—treating Phillip more like a witness than a suspect. She did have to admit it may have been a smart way to handle the situation; witnesses would be more forthcoming than suspects.
However, Larry responded only with a sigh.
“Is there anything I should know about him before I have him back in here?” Elijah posed.
“A lot.”
“Do you want to come down to the station and tell me a little bit about him?”
“I think that would be a good idea,” Larry said. “The more I can tell you about him, the less he has to tell you. The less time he spends at the station the better.”
“When can you come in?” Elijah asked.
“I can come in now if you’d like.”
Elijah held up his hand to Jenny as if to tell her to wait for something. “That’d be great. Just ask for me when you get here.”
“Okay,” Larry replied. “I’ll see you soon.” After a brief pause he added, “And Elijah? I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“I don’t want you here,” Elijah said to Jenny, which was the opposite of what she thought he was going to say.
“Really?”
“I don’t want to run any risk at all of you being seen here. I don’t even want your car in the parking lot. I don’t want Larry to believe there is any professional connection between you and me at all.”
Suddenly his approach made sense to Jenny. “Okay,” she said, standing and reaching for her coat.
“Once he’s gone—good and gone—I’ll have you come back and watch the video. Until then, stay as far from here as possible. Capiche?”
Jenny got a serious look on her face as she saluted. “Yes, sir.” She turned and quickly scooted out the door.
Jenny poked at her lunch with a fork as she contemplated the latest theory. Archer was longtime friends with Larry before he started hanging out with Lena, presumably making Larry jealous. Phillip must have known about this jealousy and called Larry when he saw Lena alone and vulnerable that night. Phillip got in his gray Toyota Corolla and picked up Larry. One of them had a gun. They found her walking alone down the street, and they shot her as she walked.
Something wasn’t sitting right with her as she deliberated this notion. Did Phillip have a problem with Lena? Clearly he was mentally unwell; was that reason enough to kill her? Was he easily persuaded by Larry, perhaps like his puppet? Jenny strummed her fingers on the table hoping for some insight.
Instead of insight she received a phone call. “Hey,” Elijah said when she picked up. “Larry’s gone. Care to come down and see what he had to say?”
“I’ll be there in a few,” Jenny said as she called the waitress over for her check.
“It started in high school,” Larry explained on the video. “He started to become withdrawn and say things that didn’t make sense. We all knew something was up with him, but at first we didn’t know what.
“Eventually his parents brought him to the doctor, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. That diagnosis did explain a lot—most of his ramblings had been about people who were trying to harm him in strange ways. For instance, he thought one of his teachers was using invisible ink on his papers to write subliminal messages to him in an attempt to control his brain. The good news is that he got put on meds and did quite well for a long time.”
“A long time. What do you mean by a long time?”
Larry did a little math in his head. “It was probably a good six or seven years before he got into any trouble.”
“So you were saying he was in his early to mid twenties before he had any problems?”
“That is correct.”
“And what happened then?”
“Well,” Larry began, “He got into a few physical altercations with people.”
“Fights?” Elijah’s tone was pointed.
“Yes,” Larry admitted reluctantly. “Fights.”
“Did he start these fights?”
“Seemingly, yes. Sometimes when he’d be out somewhere he’d get the idea that someone was trying to harm him. He would pick somebody out of the crowd and decide that person was the problem. Once he said that a guy was tran
smitting brain waves at him, trying to steal his thoughts. Another time he declared that a restaurant patron was really an FBI agent sent to kidnap him in the parking lot. In both instances—and a couple of others—he started altercations with these people, which appeared to be random and unwarranted. In reality, though, he was just protecting himself from the harm he believed they were causing to him.”
“And you never saw any displays like that in high school?”
“No. He was never violent back then. Just paranoid. In fact, the few times he did get physical with people were either when he stopped taking his medication or when his doctor had just adjusted his meds. When he’s on a good dosage, he functions somewhat normally.”
“Why would he stop taking his medication?”
“Every once in a while he’d stop taking it to see if he still needed it. I think that’s a pretty thing common for people to do. You’re doing fine, so you question if it’s the drugs making you well or if you’re actually just better.” Larry shrugged his shoulders. “There’s really only one way to find that out.”
On the screen, Elijah was busy jotting notes down. Reading over his own pages, he then said, “You say he could function somewhat normally when his dosage was good. What does that mean?”
“Well, he’s always going to have problems with motivation. And depression. But when his meds are right, he doesn’t feel like anyone is out to get him.”
“Can he hold down a job?”
Larry laughed. “Yes. I can attest to that. He works for me.”
Elijah glanced up at Larry from across the desk. “Really? What does he do for you?”
“Stocks shelves, mostly. It’s simple work, and I overpay him for it. I also overlook some of the days where he’s unproductive or extra sullen, because I know he can’t help it. I’m not sure other employers would be so forgiving, so I keep him on board to make sure he doesn’t find himself out on the streets. Apparently a lot of paranoid schizophrenics end up jobless and, as a result, homeless, and I don’t want that to happen to Phillip.”
As she watched the video unfold, Jenny couldn’t help but feel that Larry Goldberg was a genuinely good man—hardly the murdering type.
Elijah continued his interrogation on the screen. “Okay, Larry, so here’s what I’m looking at. I’ve had some folks testify that they dropped Lena off at the corner of Mathison and Bartlett the night she was killed. As you probably know, that was Phillip’s address.”
“It was.”
“Now here’s what’s troubling to me. Somebody obviously killed her, but very few people knew she was there. Your buddy Phillip may have been one of those few.”
Jenny noticed Larry’s body language shift. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms; she was unsure what that meant.
Larry didn’t reply, so Elijah continued. “Now from what you’re saying, it’s distinctly possible that perhaps Phillip saw her out there and decided she was a threat. After all, it would be a little unusual to see someone being dropped off on the side of the road at that hour. Perhaps it didn’t sit right with Phillip. Maybe he thought she was out to get him.”
“I know where you’re going with this,” Larry said, “and I can assure you you’re wrong.”
“And how can you be so sure about that?” Elijah pressed.
“First of all, where would Phillip have gotten a gun?”
“Were there guns in his house?”
Larry let out a snort. “Guns? That’s a joke. Once his parents found out he was schizophrenic, they kept their knife block locked inside a cabinet. There’s no way they would have had a gun in the house with a mentally ill child. They were much better parents than that.”
“But that suggests they knew he had a propensity for violence,” Elijah noted.
“That suggests they knew schizophrenic teens are more likely to commit suicide. They also kept their medications locked up. It’s not like Phillip was going to go out and attack somebody with a Tylenol capsule.”
Jenny bit her lip. She knew now was no time for laughter despite her overwhelming urge to do so.
“Okay, so Phillip himself didn’t have access to a gun. Perhaps, though, he knew someone who did—someone who may have wanted Lena out of the picture…”
Larry covered his face with his hands. “Are we back to this again? Seriously? How many times do I have to tell you that I did not have anything against Lena. I am not, nor have I ever been homosexual, and I was not in love with Archer Davenport. I was home by ten and most likely watching television at the hour Lena was killed.”
Elijah sat back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Now what makes you think I was talking about you just then? All I said was he knew someone with a grudge.”
“Oh, come off it, Murphy. You know as well as I do that was an insinuation.” Larry leaned his elbows on the desk. “I’m not here to have that same circular discussion we had last time. I’m here to talk about Phillip, and if that’s not what we’re going to do, then I’m out of here.”
Elijah held up his hands. “Okay. We’ll discuss Phillip. What else would you like me to know?”
Tilting his head, presumably to pop his neck, Larry continued. “Phillip does not do well with stress. The poor guy can’t even ask a woman for a date for God’s sake. He knows that about himself and takes measures to avoid getting into situations that can freak him out. However, when a policeman called him and told him he had to go down to the station for an interview, he didn’t feel like he could say no to that. All the way there he kept trying to figure out what charges awaited him or what you guys could have possible had against him. He already feels like the world is out to get him; imagine how he felt when the police called.”
“So what do you think we can do to make this easier for him?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said with a shake of his head. “Maybe you could interview him somewhere else? Is that possible?”
“It’s possible, if that would make him more comfortable.”
“It might. I’m not sure,” Larry replied. “The other thing you can do is ease up on the we think you did it talk. If you make it clear to him that you believe he’s a witness, not a culprit—and you need his help—you’re more likely to get productive answers out of him. And I can honestly tell you,” Larry continued, “that, if anything, Phillip is only a witness. I would stake my life on the fact that he didn’t pull that trigger. Your only question is whether or not he saw the person who did.”
Elijah stopped the video and looked over at Jenny, who sat still with her hand over her mouth. “I take it you aren’t getting anything?”
“Not from Lena, no,” she whispered, shaking her head subtly.
“What does that mean?”
Jenny threw up her hands. “To be honest, he seems like an upstanding guy to me.”
“Sadly, they often do,” Elijah replied. “My job would be a whole lot easier if some of these guys weren’t such convincing liars. But think about it…if it isn’t this guy, then it’s probably Mark Smalls, who sat in that very room and wept like a baby when he told me he dropped Lena off in the middle of the night. If that was an act, then it was quite a performance.”
“Maybe the tears were real,” Jenny surmised. “They were tears of guilt after all. Maybe he was just feeling guilty about something other than what he was confessing to.”
Jenny stopped herself from saying anything more. Her current argument went against everything she believed to be true. Yes, Lena brought her to the place Mark had dropped her off, but that was also Phillip Grandby’s house. The truth of the matter was that Lena didn’t react when Jenny was outside the reunion with Mark Smalls; she reacted whenever Jenny focused on things that surrounded Archer Davenport, Larry Goldberg and Phillip Grandby. As much as Jenny didn’t want to believe it, Larry Goldberg—and Phillip Granby—most likely had something to do with Lena’s death.
“Okay, well here’s something,” Jenny posed. “Suppose Pam and I go to Larry’s store tomorrow and h
e and Phillip are both there. If Lena does start talking to me, how am I going to know which guy she’s alerting me to?”
Elijah wiped his hands down his face. “You may not.”
“Unless I can touch them,” she said thoughtfully.
“Touch them?”
“Yes. During my last case, whenever I touched the killer—or rather, he touched me—I felt a burning sensation where the contact was made. Maybe I can shake hands with these guys, or accidentally brush up against them.” Jenny made quotes with her hands as she said the word.
“I don’t know about that,” Elijah replied with a shake of the head. “Larry, maybe, but not Phillip. Even though Larry claims that Phillip does well when he’s on the right medication, I don’t want you making contact with a paranoid schizophrenic man. He may think you’re out to get him somehow—which you are, incidentally—and he may try to hurt you.”
Jenny gave it some thought. “You don’t think that anyone has accidentally bumped into him in all the years he’s been stocking shelves there?”
“He thought his teacher was writing subliminal messages with invisible ink. We’re not dealing with a logical man here, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
With a frustrated sigh, Jenny said, “Okay, well I guess I can at least narrow it down by going there. If I get a contact, that will be telling. If I don’t, that will be equally as telling.”
“This is often a process-of-elimination game,” Elijah said. “Any name we can cross of the list will be helpful. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, Pam said she’d meet you at the store at twelve thirty. She wants to meet in the parking lot.”
Jenny nodded. “Twelve thirty. Got it.” Jenny tapped her forehead. “I’ll be there with bells on.”
Jenny sat in the guest room of Elijah’s house, staring at her phone. This was not a phone call she wanted to make, but she knew it had to be done. Elijah’s words echoed through her head. Rip the band aid right off. Use definitive words. That may have been easier said than done. With a deep breath she gathered her courage and touched the screen to call Greg.
