Ted said, "Hang on a second. This could be Doc."
He answered the phone and nodded as he looked at Jerrod.
"We were just loading him up now," Ted said into the receiver. "Six o'clock is fine. I'll let Jerrod and Shroom know. Thanks. See you then." Ted snapped the phone shut.
"You catch that. Autopsy at six. Doc will be in court all afternoon."
"Okay," Jerrod said. "Let's get Walter moving."
Jerrod and Ted lifted the body and laid him gently into the body bag spread on the bedroom carpet.
"He didn't weight much," Ted said as he pulled the long zipper of the vinyl bag and Walter Jelinski's face disappeared behind it. "I've moved people twice that big."
They lifted the bag and carried it to the living room where it was placed on a wheeled coroner's gurney. An olive green cover with "Sheriff-Coroner" embroidered on the side was placed over the body bag and straps were buckled into place to secure the body to the gurney.
"Okay. Off to the morgue," Ted said. "I'll see you there."
"Thanks for everything today," Jerrod said as he removed his latex gloves.
"Anytime," Ted said as he removed his gloves and they shook hands. "But not anytime soon."
"You all done with this front door," Jerrod asked Shroom as he examined the black fingerprint powder on the door surface, frame casing, lock set and dead bolt.
"Yeah. All done there," Shroom said. "No good latents on any of it... lot's of smudges and 'partials'. I'll look closer at them later.
“Okay. I'm going to keep Walter's set of keys," Jerrod said as he tested the house keys on the ring and found that, like Donny Jelinski has told Nate, each of the two locks on the door used a different key.
"Okay," Shroom said. "You need to sign for them."
"Yeah. Sure," Jerrod said. "When are you going to be done in here?"
"Perfection takes time, young man," Shroom said. "'Patience is a virtue', you know."
"I get real pissed-off when people quote scripture to me," Jerrod said while trying to control a smirk. "The last guys who quoted The Bible to me died a very sudden and violent death. You've been warned."
"That's not from The Bible," Stan said.
"Where's is from... Professor?" Jerrod asked.
"Some poem from old England," Stan said. "I don't remember the name of the poem off the top of my head. But it wasn't from The Bible."
"Stan... do you know everything about everything?" Shroom asked.
Stan thought for a second. "Yeah... pretty much."
"You can come back tomorrow, if you want," Jerrod said to Shroom. "I'm going to lock the place up and seal the front door. We may need to get back in and look some more depending on how things develop. We've got ten days to file the return to the judge, so there's no rush."
"I think I've got everything I need," Shroom said. "Let's get out of here."
"After you," Jerrod said.
Jerrod made sure Walter Jelinski's bedroom window was locked and used the two keys on his ring to lock the front door. Shroom applied a bright orange self-adhesive sticker reading "Sealed by the Sheriff. Do Not Enter" on the door to deter anyone who may be tempted to tamper with the scene.
"Hey Stan," Jerrod said. "Want to go talk to this guy, Nick Usher, with me?"
"Sure."
"Let's go. I'll drive."
CHAPTER 39
At five o'clock, Jerrod Gold drove toward the north side Valle Verde address for Nick Usher. Stan Walsh was in his passenger seat.
"Buckle-up for safety," Jerrod said.
"Seatbelts are for pussies," Stan shot back.
"I guess you've never been a passenger in a car while I'm driving before."
Stan looked at him, but was pride-committed to leaving his seatbelt off.
"Suit yourself," Jerrod said.
"How do to you like working at the SO?" Stan asked.
"I like it at the SO. Good place to work. The pay's great. Lots to do there. Plenty of personnel changes and retirements, so I made sergeant in less than four years. Working for Blanchard is awesome. No complaints."
"Miss the PD at all?"
"Sure. I still talk to a few of the guys -- Marko, Rusty, Dave, and AJ. I see The Kevins now and then. It wasn't the same after Craig retired and moved to Nevada."
Stan nodded.
"They built that nice, new PD building a couple years ago just south of the old PD. That old building was a shit-hole, but I still miss it. The City tore down the old PD to put in a Youth Center. The Corner Hot Dog Stand got moved a couple blocks north. The chili dogs are still good, but it's all just not the same place I knew."
Jerrod sighed.
"I'm glad I left when I did."
Stan said, "The sheriff obviously knew about your shooting when he hired you."
"You think so? It was in the newspaper and they did a background on me," Jerrod said as he glanced down at the back of his right hand on the steering wheel.
"I mean, he hired you anyway. He probably doesn't have a clue about the other stuff you did."
"You gonna tell him"
"I'm not going to tell him. And the sheriff and Mr. Harlan can't stand each other, so I think your secrets are safe there too."
Jerrod turned and glared at Stan.
"I've got to say--," Stan said.
"Please stop talking about it," Jerrod interrupted.
Stan continued, "I've got to say that it was a pretty ingenious little investigation you worked up. You definitely like to 'color outside the lines'. Is purple still your favorite shade?"
Jerrod flashed back to the plan he devised to catch Mendoza and the chemical Ninhydrin that was used in the nail salon causing the pastor's wife's feet to turn purple.
"I don't know what your talking about," Jerrod said.
"No problem," Stan said. "Let's go catch us a killer."
The cool afternoon fog had predictably rolled into the City of Valle Verde and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees.
Jerrod and Stan drove to the address on Nicholas Joseph Usher's driver's license in the north part of Valle Verde, but found no reddish-orange Chevy Vega station wagon parked there. They knocked on the door of the nicely-kept thirty-year old single story house and got no answer. Jerrod left a business card in the door jam with a note on the back asking the occupant to call when they returned home.
"Let's check the address the PO gave us," Stan suggested.
Jerrod drove south down Constitution Avenue and took a few side streets through "The Rochester" section of Valle Verde's east side.
"Don't you live around here?" Stan asked.
"In 'The Rochester'?" Jerrod asked. "Not since I 'escaped' my mom's house when I was about nineteen."
Stan snickered. "'Escaped?'"
"Yeah. Pretty much," Jerrod said. "My mom's fine, but my step-dad was... is... a fucking asshole and I got out as soon as I could afford my own place. Can't stand that prick."
Stan nodded.
"'My own place' turned into being a couch in someone else's house for awhile."
"Been there myself, pal," Stan said.
"I eventually got hired by the PD when I was twenty. After I got out of the police academy, I starting making enough cash to rent an older one-bedroom duplex on the east side. I bought the house I'm in now in about 1984. It's six or seven blocks from my mom's place."
"Have you ever lived anywhere else?" Stan asked. "Besides Valle Verde, that is."
"No." Jerrod said and then thought for few seconds. "Never wanted to live anywhere else."
Jerrod drove into the senior's community on the far south-east corner of Valle Verde officially named "Appletree Estates." Residents there had to be aged fifty-five or older to live there.
Stan asked, "The guys at the PD have a nickname, or two, for this little part of town, right?"
"'Menopause Manor' and 'Limp-Dick Village' come to mind," Jerrod said. "I worked this beat for about a year in the early '80s. I met a lot of the old timers out here. I loved their stories and wou
ld stay as long as I could while handling calls."
Stan nodded.
"There's an incredible amount of history in all these little houses. Almost all of the people out here lived through the Great Depression and World War Two. Lot's of war veterans live here. They're all heroes and most people will never know anything about them."
Jerrod stopped for a stop sign.
"I met a lady who had survived one of Nazi concentration camps in Poland. It wasn't Auschwitz -- it was one of the other ones. She got liberated when the Soviets rolled in, but was the only member of her immediate family who made it through the war." Jerrod paused. "I can't even start to imagine the terror that woman experienced. She was so sweet and gentle when I talked to her." Jerrod paused again and looked out the side window for a second. "These people all remind me of my Gram and Gramps."
At five-thirty, Jerrod turned left onto the street of the address the Probation Department had furnished -- a short cul de sac named Roanoke Court. Parked at the curb in front of the address was a Chevrolet Vega station wagon.
Jerrod pulled his Buick behind the wagon and the two investigators walked along each side of the car to look inside. Its faded exterior paint was more red than orange and its black interior was as weather-worn as the exterior. Papers and cups and soda cans filled the front seat and a variety of tool bags and construction supplies filled the back cargo area.
"Can I help you?" a pale and obese man in his mid-sixties -- wearing a thin white t-shirt stretched to its capacity and black shorts -- yelled across the lawn from the front steps of the modest house.
"We're looking for the owner of this car," Stan yelled back.
"That car belongs to my daughter's boyfriend," the man yelled as Jerrod and Stan walked toward him on the curving walkway that split the front lawn.
"Is he home now, sir?" Jerrod asked.
"He doesn't live here," the man said. "He just visits."
"Is he here now?" Jerrod asked as they reached the front steps.
"Who are you and why are you asking questions about Nick?" the man asked.
"We're investigators," Jerrod said. "I'm with the Sheriff's Office and he's with the DA's Office. What's your name, sir?"
"I'm Ernest Heikki," he said. "My friends call me 'Ernie.'"
"May we call you 'Ernie,' sir?" Stan asked.
"Sure," Ernie said as he turned and looked back through the open front door into the dark house.
"Nick may have some information on a case we're working on," Jerrod said. "He's not in any trouble."
"He's been in trouble before," Ernie said. "But you probably know that already."
"Yes, sir," Stan said.
"He's a good boy. He helps me here around the house when Dolores -- that's my daughter, Dolores Heikki -- is at work."
"We'd just like to talk to him for a few minutes--," Jerrod said as a tall, thin man with a scowling face and a Fu Manchu mustache walked out the front door and stood next to Ernie.
The man crossed his arms. "I'm Nick Usher. Are you looking for me?"
CHAPTER 40
"Nick," Jerrod said. "We'd like to talk to you about Walter Jelinski."
"Is he okay?" Nick asked.
"We'd like to talk to you about that," Stan said.
"Alright," Nick said.
"This might not be the best place to talk," Jerrod said. "Would you mind coming with us down to the Valle Verde Police Department to have a chat?"
"We were just making dinner," Nick said.
"It shouldn't take more than a few minutes," Stan added.
"I don't know. I was just starting--,"
"Do we need to get your PO involved, Nick?" Jerrod interrupted.
Nick glared down at Jerrod. "Okay. Let me get a jacket."
Jerrod and Stan ignored Ernie Heikki's yammering as Nick turned and walked back into the house. They carefully watched the open doorway as they waited for Nick to reappear and were prepared for anything as fifteen seconds, then thirty, then a full minute passed.
The two investigators watched for Nick's hands as he reemerged through the doorway with a tan-colored light jacket over his right forearm. His left hand was to his side. Neither hand held the small black revolver belonging to Walter Jelinski.
"I'll talk to these guys and come back to finish dinner," Nick said to Ernie as he put on the jacket. "I shut everything off on the stove."
"Okay," Ernie said as Nick bounded down the steps and onto the walkway.
"Can I meet you there?" Nick asked.
"We can go in my car," Jerrod said in tone more weighted toward direction than suggestion.
"Okay," Nick said.
"Nick, you're not under arrest and we're just going to go talk," Jerrod said. You're not being detained. No handcuffs or anything. Okay?"
"Sure," Nick said.
"Do you have any weapons on you?" Stan asked.
"No."
"Do you mind if we pat-you-down before you get in the car?" Jerrod asked.
"Yeah. I mean no. Go ahead," Nick said as he raised his arms parallel to the sidewalk and Stan felt his pockets and waistband for any potential weapons."
Stan was at least six-foot tall and Jerrod was two inches taller than that. Nick had to be six-four or five.
"Nothing," Stan said to Jerrod.
"Nick, jump in the back here," Jerrod said as he opened the passenger side back door of the Buick.
"Okay," Nick said as he uncomfortably coiled his long legs into the confined space of the backseat.
Stan walked to the driver's side and got in next to Nick as Jerrod got behind the steering wheel.
Ernie watched them from the steps as Jerrod drove to the end of the cul de sac and turned the car around as they headed to the VVPD.
"What's going on with Walter?" Nick asked.
"We'll talk about that at the PD," Stan said.
The five-minute car ride was silent. Jerrod pulled into the small parking lot at the front of the new two-story VVPD building. Stan opened the rear door and the investigators watched Nick stretch as he uncoiled his long frame from the seat.
"Wouldn't want to go cross-country like that," Nick said as they walked to the front door of the PD.
Jerrod pushed the button on the small chrome call-box just outside the front door.
"How can I help you, Jerrod?" the voice VVPD dispatcher Albert "Al" Kees said as Jerrod looked up and waved at the CCTV camera hanging above the door.
"Hello, Al. We just need to use an interview room for a few minutes. Is that alright?"
"Come on in," Al said as the electronic lock "buzzed" and Jerrod pulled one of the two glass doors open.
He held the door for Nick and Stan followed him into the public lobby. A long pane of bulletproof glass over a counter allowed a view into the vacant Records Section. The lock to a heavy door to the far right wall of the neutrally-painted lobby "buzzed" and the three men walked through into a wide hallway. Immediately across the hall from the lobby door was a closed door with a sign on it which read: "Detective Bureau."
Twenty-feet down the hallway were two unmarked and unlocked doors. Behind each door were carefully constructed rooms designed for the for the delicate art of the interviewing and interrogation of people involved in criminal investigations.
The rooms were spartan with no windows and off-white walls. A soft light came from a recessed fluorescent light in the white acoustic-tile ceiling. A plain gray metal table was butted against the far wall. Two simple steel armed chairs -- one on each side of the table -- were the only furnishings in the room.
"Have a seat over there, Nick," Jerrod said as he directed him to the chair farthest away from the door.
"I'll grab a chair from the other room," Stan said as he closed the door and Jerrod sat down on the opposite side of the table from Nick.
"Where do you hide the bright light and phone book?" Nick said as he referred to the brutal "Third Degree" interrogation techniques used by the police in the past to coerce confessions from suspects.
"We stopped using those methods about two or three years ago," Jerrod said. "We just use nice words and gentle voices when we talk to people now."
Nick laughed as Stan walked in with a third chair. He placed it at the open end of the table -- further blocking Nick's access to the door and intensifying the stress level.
"Did I miss a joke?" Stan asked.
"Nick was just asking where our torture devices were," Jerrod said.
Stan grinned.
"So what is this?" Nick asked. "'Good Cop and Bad Cop?' So who's who?"
"We prefer 'Bad Cop and Worse Cop,'" Stan said without missing a beat. "You have to figure out who's who for yourself."
Nick swallowed... hard.
"Just messing with you," Jerrod said. "We're here to talk to you about Walter Jelinski and his son -- Donny."
"I'd like to know what's going on with Walter," Nick said.
"Nick," Jerrod continued. "You're not under arrest and you're not being detained. You can stop this interview at any time. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Nick said.
"You got into some legal trouble a year or so ago, right?" Jerrod asked.
"Yes."
"Tell us about that. You're version," Stan said.
"I went to talk to my wife... ex-wife... about my son. Her new dick-head husband was there and said something that pissed me off. I told him the conversation didn't involve him, but he kept butting in. He got in my face and I punched him. That's all."
"You punched him a few times," Jerrod said.
"I just kind of lost it... lost my mind. I can't stand the thought of that prick living with my wife and son," Nick said. "I pled guilty in court and did some jail time. I had to agree to a suspended five-year prison sentence in the deal. And I lost my job... I had a good job as a union electrician... because of... that."
"We all make mistakes, Nick," Stan said.
"What happened to Walter?" Nick asked.
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