Dead Broke (Lana Denae Mystery Series Book 1)

by Bruce A. Borders

  “Thanks,” Lana said, moving on down the hall.

  Then from somewhere behind, someone said, “Thought I heard your voice out here.”

  Lana whirled to find a smiling Kurt Stabler standing in the open doorway of Apartment 607. “Still cleaning out your aunt’s things?”

  Kurt nodded. “Giving most of it to charity. I’ll keep a few things, sentimental items. What’s taking time is going through all the papers. She saved everything. Seriously. She must have kept every receipt, and every bill she ever got. Want to know what was on her grocery list from five or ten years ago? It’s there. There are bank statements, insurance statements, credit card statements, tax records—from the last three decades—boxes of receipts, and on and on.”

  “I certainly don’t envy you,” Lana said.

  Kurt smiled wearily. “The worst part is done. Just waiting now for someone to come and pick up the furniture and other things. How’s the investigation going?”

  “We’ve had a few new developments,” Lana said, purposefully being vague.

  Noticing the picture she was holding, Kurt said, “Isn’t that Eric Schmidt, the guy you arrested.”

  “Mm-hm. Just checking to see if anyone here recognizes him. So far, no luck, but I’ve still got a lot of people on this floor to get to.”

  “Okay,” Kurt said, taking the hint. “I’ll let you get back to work. Just wanted to say hi.”

  “Thanks, I’m glad you did.” Lana hoped her words sounded sincere. It wasn’t that she minded talking to people, but the interruptions were sometimes frustrating when she had a job to do. And of course, that’s when everyone wanted to visit.

  As Kurt disappeared and closed the door, Lana moved on to the next apartment, again going through the routine questions. “Do you recognize this man? Have you seen him in or around the building?” And again, she received the same negative response.

  Working her way around the apartments, she was given the same reply by everyone she asked. Finally, she wound up in front of Nellie Langstrom’s door, which she had purposefully put off until last.

  Her knock was answered almost immediately by a frowning Nellie. Giving Lana a quick once over, the half-crazed woman said, “Detective Denae! I thought I’d seen the last of you. Did you solve your murder?”

  “Not yet, Mrs. Langstrom. I just came by to ask if you’d seen this man?” Lana flashed the eight by ten picture, holding it up so Nellie could get a good look.

  “Yes, I’ve seen him,” Nellie said, matter-of-factly.

  “You have?” Lana asked with a bit of surprise. After asking everyone else on the floor, she’d come to expect the same answer.

  “Sure,” Nellie said. “He’s the guy who was here spraying the trees.”

  “Spraying the trees?”

  “Yes.” Nellie nodded. “He said a couple of them were diseased and he’d been called to come spray a pesticide or herbicide—I don’t remember which one he said now. Which one is for killing diseases in plants?”

  “That would be a fungicide, Mrs. Langstrom,” Lana said with a hint of irritation. “When was this?”

  “Oh, a few weeks ago.”

  “Can you remember the day?”

  Nellie twisted up her mouth, thinking. “Along about the time you first showed up asking about my neighbor, Roselyn, I think.”

  “Could it have been the morning of the sixth?” Lana prompted.

  “Maybe. Yes, now that I think about it, I think it was. Why? Is he in trouble? He seemed like such a nice young man.”

  Ignoring Nellie’s questions, Lana said, “Do you know what time you saw him or exactly what he was doing?”

  “Well, it would have been right around four thirty or five. Probably closer to four thirty, I guess. I know because I had my alarm set for five that day so I could get up and... Oh, what am I saying? You don’t care about any of that. What was it you asked? Oh yes, what time he was here.”

  Lana was growing more frustrated by the minute. Answers were extremely hard to come by from this woman. But experience had taught her that when someone is talking, particularly, a potential witness to a crime, let them talk. You never know what they might say; what little relevant tidbit they might remember or unintentionally reveal.

  Nellie was still rambling. “Like I said, it was about four thirty. I heard a sound out in the hall so I opened my door to see what it was. What I saw, was the guy in your picture there. He was bent over the tree right outside my door, like he was praying for it or something.”

  Lana was frowning at the visual Nellie was creating but didn’t interrupt, letting the woman continue her story.

  “When I asked him what he was doing, he straightened up quickly and then told me about the trees being diseased. Some weird disease. He said the name of it but I don’t know what it was. Anyway, he’d just finished spraying and was sending positive energy to the tree, he said. Ha, that’s funny. In a way, I guess he was praying for them, huh?”

  Lana nodded, but not in agreement. She had a totally different idea about what Eric Schmidt was doing by the tree; it had nothing to with praying but it did involve destroying evidence, or at least trying to hide it. “Mrs. Langstrom,” she said. “Do you happen to have Paul Borland’s number handy?”

  Nellie looked indignant. Pained. Almost hurt. As if her credibility was being called into question. “I do,” she said. “But why would you wanna to talk to him?”

  “Can’t say I want to. Lana made a face. “Necessary evil, I suppose.”

  The comment seemed to pacify Nellie, realizing Lana held as little regard for the man as she.

  “Could you give him a call and ask him to come up? You can tell him I’m here, that should make him come running.”

  Nellie laughed and disappeared into her apartment, leaving Lana standing by the open door. In a minute or so, she called out from the kitchen, “He wants to know why you’re here and why you didn’t check in with him.”

  “I’ll be happy to answer his questions when he gets here,” Lana called back.

  It was only a few seconds then, until Nellie reappeared. “He’s on his way. Griping and complaining like a spoiled little child, but he’s on his way.”

  “Thank you,” Lana said. “While we’re waiting, there’s something I’ve been wondering about.”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “When we asked if you’d seen anyone strange lurking around the building, someone who perhaps didn’t belong, at the time of Mrs. Wymer’s murder, you told us you had not. Is there a reason you didn’t tell us about this man?” She held up the photo again, briefly.

  Nellie looked genuinely confused. “That guy wasn’t strange at all. And he was friendly! We talked for twenty minutes or more. And he did belong here, as I already told you, he was taking care of the trees.”

  Having dealt with Mrs. Langstrom’s skewed form of logic before, Lana knew she shouldn’t be surprised by the woman’s answer. Yet, she was. Before she could offer a comment, Paul Borland came stomping up the stairs.

  Bursting into the hall, he lost no time in loudly berating Lana for her willful disregard for his self-assumed authority. “Once again, I see you have failed to comply with my simple request. What is it with you people?”

  Ignoring the man’s temper tantrum, Lana held up the picture of Eric Schmidt. “Mr. Borland, did you hire this man to spray the trees here at the Rose City Apartments?

  “Now why on Earth would I do that?” Borland spluttered. “I am quite capable of spraying trees if they require it. No need to go paying someone else.” Then suddenly, he was suspicious. “Why? What business is it of yours?”

  “It may be related to the murder of Mrs. Wymer, which makes it my business,” Lana said calmly. “Nellie found the man here the morning of the murder and he claimed to be spraying the trees due to a disease of some sort.”

  “My trees aren’t diseased,” Borland insisted. “I take good care of them.”

  “I’m sure you do, sir,” Lana said. “And since you d
idn’t hire this man, I’d like to dig up this tree—with your permission of course.”

  “Dig up my tree? Absolutely not!”

  “Mr. Borland, I have reason to believe there may be evidence buried in the dirt around this tree. In fact, I can see where the soil appears to have recently been disturbed.”

  “I’ll not have you destroying my trees,” Borland bellowed. “You start digging in the dirt, it’ll kill the roots.”

  “Okay,” Lana said, thinking that if the gun was actually buried in the pot, the damage to the tree had already been done. “Maybe you’d like to do it then?”

  “Don’t make no difference who digs, the roots’ll still get damaged.”

  “Well, it’s either that or I can call our crime scene guys to remove the entire tree, planter and all.”

  Blowing out an exasperated sigh, Borland shook his head. “No, I’ll do it. Kneeling to the floor, he began carefully removing the soil, a handful at a time. He’d been at it only a couple of minutes when he hit something solid.

  “Hold on,” Lana said. Crouching beside the tree and slipping on a rubber glove, she wiped away some more of the dirt. Then slowly, she pulled out the dampened clump of dirt and discolored metal.

  “What is that?” Nellie exclaimed.

  “This, I believe, is our murder weapon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The first ballistics report Lana received that afternoon was for that of Holloway’s Smith and Wesson. The testing had easily determined it was not the murder weapon. After finding the gun at the Rose City Apartments that morning, this was no surprise and glancing briefly at the report she tossed it on top of the pile of papers on her desk.

  The second report, for Eric Schmidt’s gun was the one she was waiting to see. This one took a while longer.

  After cleaning the dirt and grime from the firearm, the crime lab had determined it was, in fact, the gun that had killed Roselyn Wymer. Although no fingerprints had been found, the lab had pulled DNA and positively matched it to Eric Schmidt.

  At last, they had him. With a witness who could place him at the scene and DNA from the murder weapon, Lana felt vindicated—sort of. There was still the matter of having arrested the wrong guy, and she felt personally to blame. While she had maintained her belief of Holloway’s innocence throughout, she couldn’t help but feel responsible. Having sent Jamie and Damien to pickup up Eric for questioning again, in light of the new evidence, she was on her way now to release Holloway—and apologize.

  It wasn’t a job she looked forward to and though she could have easily had the man booked out by a duty officer, she felt she owed him the dignity of showing up to take the heat herself.

  Taking a deep breath, Lana walked up the steps and pushed through the heavy double doors to where Holloway waited. Entering the holding area, she met Holloway’s steady gaze. The friendliness the man had exhibited before was gone. She cringed but spoke in a clear, strong voice. “On behalf of the Portland police Bureau, and myself, I would like to apologize for your unjustifiable arrest.”

  Holloway’s hard expression didn’t soften. “You can save it for my attorney,” he replied tersely. “Along with anything else you want to say to me.”

  “I understand,” Lana said quietly. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Holloway eyed the detective a moment. “Told you I didn’t do it. Maybe next time someone tells you that you could try giving them the benefit of the doubt.”

  The regret on Lana’s face changed into a tired grimace. “Problem is, everyone says that.”

  “Then maybe you need to do a better job of investigating before you go arresting innocent people.”

  Filling out the release papers, Lana paused. “You’re right,” I do.” Then turning the pages around, she slid them toward Holloway. “Sign here and you can be on your way. Do you need a ride?”

  “I’ll manage,” was Holloway’s rough reply as he signed the form.

  Watching him go, Lana felt another twinge of guilt and wished there was a way she could make it up to him. Not to redeem herself, but to take away some of the misery she had caused the man, and perhaps alleviate some of his anger.

  Not that she was worried about the charges of false arrest the man’s lawyer had threatened her with. If Daniel Brumbaugh actually made good on that promise, it would involve the Bureau and not her personally. Besides, as Captain Hayden had said, based on the evidence, they’d had more than enough reason for the arrest.

  Of course, none of that made her feel any better. She still felt at least partially to blame for the man’s woes, knowing she should have been more diligent in her approach.

  In a dour mood, Lana headed back to the precinct. Guilt-ridden or not, she still had a job that needed to be done.

  “Eric Schmidt is waiting in interrogation,” Damien said as Lana walked into the patrol room.

  “How did things go?”

  “About as expected. He didn’t resist or anything, but he kept asking us if we’d found his sister and going on about Holloway.”

  “And wanting to know where you were,” Jamie added with a grin. “Guess he misses his ‘soul mate.’”

  Lana rolled her eyes. “Did you mention anything to him about why he was being brought in?”

  “Not a word,” Damien answered. “Just like you said. He thinks he’s just here for more routine questioning.”

  “Thanks,” Lana said. Then, checking the time, she asked, “How long has he been in there?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  Smiling, Lana said, “Should be getting pretty impatient by now.”

  “Disgruntled is more like it,” Damien said.

  “Think that’ll loosen his tongue a little?” Jamie asked.

  Lana shrugged. “I doubt it. But it doesn’t matter, we have evidence now. He’s not going to get away with his song and dance routine this time.”

  “You’ve got to give the guy credit though,” Jamie said. “He pulled off the act well.”

  “He certainly had you guys convinced.”

  “You were wondering too, there for a while,” Jamie returned.

  Lana nodded. “Yeah, almost. Especially with the part about his sister.”

  Ray said, “If he wasn’t a criminal I’d want to congratulate him on the job he did creating her.”

  “And then selling it to us,” Lana said.

  Damien agreed. “He should probably win an Oscar for that performance.”

  “Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t quite as smart as he thought,” Lana said. “And there are no awards for almost winning—at least not in the real world.”

  Taking a few moments to ready herself and read over her notes again, Lana stood to her feet. “Well, here goes,” she announced, heading for the interrogation room.

  “Going for a full confession?” asked Jamie.

  Lana gave him a wry smile. “I’m not a priest so I doubt I’ll get much of a confession. Besides, I don’t see Mr. Arrogant in there as the confessing type. Would be nice, though,” she said opening the door marked “Interrogations.”

  Inside the small foreboding room, a much-agitated Eric was visibly upset by the amount of time he’d been left to languish there alone. “Finally,” he said as Lana walked in. “Why am I here again?”

  “I have some more questions for you,” Lana told him.

  “And you had to arrest me for that?” Eric nearly shouted, standing to his feet.

  “Sit down, Mr. Schmidt,” Lana ordered. “You haven’t been arrested—yet.”

  Eric picked up then on the change on her demeanor from their previous encounters. “What is it?” he asked, sounding sincerely worried. “Have you found my sister? Is she all right?”

  Sorting through her papers, Lana stopped and looked up. “Oh, yes. I’d nearly forgotten about her. Our resident techie said to tell you, ‘Nice job on the creation of a fictitious person.’”

  “I don’t understand.” Eric said with a shake of his head. “What do you mean by ‘ficti
tious’ person?”

  “You can drop the act,” Lana said dryly. “We know Canya Schmidt is nothing more than a made-up character in your head. You did have us going for a while though.”

  The smug look had slowly crept back into Eric’s face as she spoke. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t have a sister. But Mr. Holloway–”

  “No,” Lana interrupted him. She paused briefly and then said, “Let me give you a quick rundown of where we are. First, this case really had me stumped. I couldn’t figure out, well, much of anything really, but what had me completely baffled was just who was responsible. There didn’t seem to be any credible evidence that pointed to anyone, and we had virtually no leads.”

  Eric was listening, still wearing his trademark smile. Almost like he found her story entertaining.

  “But then,” Lana continued. “I went back to what my mentor used to tell me. Find the what, where, when, why, and how, of the crime and those answers will point to who committed the crime.

  In this case, besides murder, the ‘what’ is data and ID theft, which suggests a computer expert.

  The ‘where’ is Portland, so probably a local guy.

  The ‘when’ was around four or five in the morning, a time most people are sleeping. That points to a night owl.

  Then there is the ‘why.’ Obviously, for the money, so that means a guy with no job. Getting the picture yet?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she went right on. “The ‘how’ was mostly with a computer or technology—except for the murders, of course. For that, an ITT-Technical Institute student comes to mind.”

  Eric was looking down but Lana doubted it was due to feeling any remorse. “Know who fits the bill on all counts?” she asked, then answered her own question. “You, Mr. Schmidt. Not Devin Holloway, you. You had the means, motive, and opportunity.” As she finished speaking, Lana stood to her feet and quickly moved around the table. “Stand up,” she ordered.

  A somewhat defiant, yet slightly amused Eric, did as he was told.

  Slapping the handcuffs on his wrists, Lana said, “Mr. Schmidt, you are under arrest for the murder of Roselyn Wymer, Chris Tolley, Gordon Pickney, Jenna Li, Vince Edgerson, Brittany Westbrook, and Jorge Martinez, as well as multiple counts of identity theft, and fraud.” Whew! That was a mouthful!