Stone Cold

by Dean Crawford

  She figured that he had changed all right, but then again she figured that he shouldn’t be at work at all, especially not this late on a Friday afternoon. He had a wife to go to, to talk to. He should be at home. But then, of course, things had changed. The 48 hour deadline on Sheila McKenzie’s life was well and truly over and there still had not been a single call.

  Maietta had waited for him to emerge from the farmstead that morning. Griffin had not blown into a rage at the Wheeler’s presence and somehow even Maietta had felt that witnessing Griffin’s pain would be a step too far for her, that she would be intruding on a moment that only he and the parents of Amy Wheeler had any right to share.

  She had then driven him home, and he had insisted on returning to work to see the shrink, Stone, and getting back onto the case somewhat more composed than he had been prior.

  ‘Nothing,’ a detective admitted from across the office. ‘She’s in the wind, no calls, no letters, nothing.’

  ‘Where’s the husband?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘Not at home, not answering his cell,’ the detective replied. ‘I’ll keep trying him.’

  ‘We’ve got this,’ Maietta said to Griffin. ‘Why don’t you get your ass out of here?’

  Griffin nodded. ‘I will, just as soon as we figure out what the hell it is we’ve been missing. The deadline’s gone and we’ve heard nothing.’

  Maietta shrugged and gestured to the wipe board, where a picture of Sheila McKenzie and her husband were pinned. ‘So far, nothing,’ she said. ‘No ransom demand, no calls, no nothing. It’s like she’s flown off the damned planet and nobody cares.’

  Griffin nodded. ‘Either her abductors have balls of steel…’

  ‘Or they’re not ever coming back for the money,’ Maietta agreed.

  ‘What about Dale McKenzie? You talk to him recently’

  ‘He’s sweating, but right now I just don’t know why,’ Maietta said. ‘You know he got suspended from flying duties at Ventura? Nearly caused a mid–air collision. Is the pressure because he’s abducted his own wife or is he worried about her?’

  ‘Could be both?’ Griffin hazarded. ‘Maybe he is involved but somehow it’s all gone wrong. We should have damned well put a watch on him when we had the chance, ruled him out or let him implicate himself. Now there’s nothing to stop an accomplice from high–tailing it out of here with his wife and her fortune too.’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t just about the money.’

  Griffin turned as Maietta handed him a sheet of paper. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘You asked me to dig into Dale McKenzie’s past a little, see what I could find out. I spent a while on it while you were…’

  Maietta broke off. Griffin waved her embarrassment away. ‘Don’t sweat it.’

  Griffin looked at the details on the paper. Dale McKenzie was thirty–eight years old. No Priors. An airline pilot for a decade.

  ‘No parents or siblings,’ Griffin said as he scanned the page. ‘Worked for several different airlines over his career, mostly as a result of shutdowns?’

  ‘Regional airlines,’ Maietta explained. ‘I made some calls. They tend to rise and fall with economic times, so I’m told, or are bought out by larger players. Pilots often move from one to another, sometimes losing their ranks as they do so.’

  ‘First officers become captains,’ Griffin agreed, ‘then they move onto bigger, better paid jobs in larger aircraft and become first officers again on that type before becoming captains again. Learning on the job, so to speak.’

  ‘McKenzie hasn’t moved up in his career,’ Maietta noted. ‘He’s just moved between regionals.’

  ‘He’s stayed with particular aircraft types,’ Griffin said. ‘Supposedly some guys don’t want to do the trans–Atlantic stuff so they stick with regional and short–haul. It lets them go home at night.’

  Griffin frowned as he pinned the page to the wipe board. ‘So our guy Dale is a home–boy, likes to be with his wife. It doesn’t jive with my instinct that he’s the perp. I still like him for abducting his wife, or at least knowing about it.’

  ‘That’s what I meant when I said about this maybe not being just about the money,’ Maietta said. ‘The file we have on him says that he has no siblings, right? And you pulled those cold cases thinking there might be a connection? But I went a bit deeper and found out that Dale was not put up for fostering: he was abandoned as a child on the steps of an orphanage.’

  ‘Ain’t life cruel,’ Griffin said. ‘His folks not like him?’

  ‘More likely,’ Maietta said, ‘that his folks could not afford them.’

  ‘Them?’ Griffin echoed.

  ‘Dale McKenzie and his brother, Stephen McKenzie.’

  Griffin almost laughed out loud. ‘You’re not telling me that there are two of them running about, surely? Like twins?’

  ‘No,’ Maietta said. ‘Stephen McKenzie died of pneumonia when he was six years old. Dale was the oldest of the two by a few minutes.’

  ‘Like attracts like,’ Griffin said thoughtfully. ‘His wife’s an orphan too, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Maietta said. ‘Maybe they thought they could be ruthless together. What if Sheila McKenzie really is in on this too? You remember what her assistant said, that the art gallery business was suffering because her competitors were acting against her. Maybe she was in deeper than we thought? Maybe she and Dale decided to play the system to their own ends a little, tease a ransom out of his airline or fake her death in return for the life insurances?’

  ‘Or maybe we’ve been looking at Dale McKenzie the wrong way,’ Griffin said as he apparently realised something important.

  ‘You really think that he and Sheila orchestrated the whole thing?’

  ‘No,’ Griffin said as he looked down at the sheet of paper. ‘But those four cold–case victims and Sheila McKenzie all have something real important in common.’

  ‘Yeah, you said they’re all orphans.’

  ‘Not just that,’ Griffin said. ‘Come on.’

  *

  ‘I’m not saying it’s a deal breaker, just hear me out.’

  Griffin stood with Jane in front of Captain Olsen, who sat with his arms folded as he stared up at the detective.

  ‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ Olsen snapped and looked at Maietta.

  ‘We were just talking,’ Maietta replied. ‘He’s got something.’

  ‘Make it fast,’ Olsen snapped at Griffin. ‘It’s Friday night and my wife’s got a pie in the oven, a beer in the fridge and I’m on a promise. Unless you can beat that, I’m done here today.’

  ‘We’ve got a lead on Dale McKenzie.’

  ‘We’ve been here before, Scott,’ the captain rumbled. ‘Dale McKenzie’s not on the cards for the abduction. He has a cast–iron alibi that he was airborne and hundreds of miles away when his wife disappeared.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the abduction,’ Griffin said. ‘I’m talking about the suspicious deaths of four women over ten years ago, the cold–case you put me on after.., after I was pulled off active duty. They all shared the same characteristic death, cardiac arrest as a result of drowning, right? Two in the bathtub, two in the pool. Coroner’s report in all cases cited a mixture of either drugs or alcohol with extreme exhaustion as the cause of death.’

  ‘It happens,’ Olsen said, losing interest already as he glanced at the dense stack of paperwork on his crowded desk. ‘Sing me a new song or I’ll get the next act up.’

  Griffin tossed a wad of papers onto the captain’s desk.

  ‘What’s this?’ Olsen asked.

  ‘Flight plans from the days of death of each of the victims. Two of the airlines are now defunct, but their flight plan records are maintained by the Federal Aviation Authority. Those plans state the captain and the first officers of each flight. Look at the names.’

  Olsen scanned down the list of pilot’s names. ‘McKenzie’s on all of them.’

  ‘Now look at the destination cities for the flights,’ Griffin added.


  Olsen looked down, scanned the destinations, and then leaned back in his chair.

  ‘McKenzie was in all of the cities on each murder date.’

  ‘He had time to kill them,’ Maietta said, speaking for Griffin. ‘He was on overnight stops in all cases. We managed to figure out which hotels he was using, as they were booked by the airlines in advance of the flights. He’s registered as staying there, but we could find no evidence that he actually slept in the hotels in question.’

  Olsen scanned the papers for a moment longer before speaking. ‘It’s not enough to bring him in. There’s no motive, no direct connection to the victims.’

  ‘He was in the vicinity of all of the murders,’ Griffin pushed. ‘All of the victims were believed to have casual boyfriends, but nobody could identify who the boyfriends actually were. All of the victims had their bank accounts cleaned out either immediately before or immediately after they died, meaning that the person who did so had access not just to the victims’ bank details but the passcode to their accounts. By the time the bodies were found, all of the cash had been withdrawn and the perpetrator had vanished into the wind.’

  ‘Sure,’ Olsen admitted, ‘I’ll buy that much, but it could be a coincidence. He’s an airline pilot after all, they move around a lot.’

  ‘Sure,’ Maietta said, ‘but I took a long hard look at McKenzie’s career. Turns out that before he was an airline pilot he barely made it through high school let alone flight school, flunked college within a year and at the age of twenty he was flipping burgers and mopping floors at a small–town greaser. The guy was a total loser.’

  Olsen shrugged. ‘So? Maybe he got tired of life taking him up the ass and turned things around, got himself sorted out, made a future for himself?’

  ‘He did,’ Griffin said, and tapped the papers on Olsen’s desk. ‘He became an airline pilot. He had to train for eighteen months to do so, thousands of hours of study, hundreds of hours of flying. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to pay for that training, so how does a burger flipper pay for it all? He probably could barely make his rent and there’s no evidence of loans from any banks.’

  Olsen’s moustache shifted position and settled down again. ‘You want to sort through his financials?’

  ‘It’s worth a deeper look,’ Maietta said. ‘From what I can figure out from what local airlines have told me, they used to pay for their pilots’ training but because they fronted the money they only took on stellar applicants like college graduates and the like, or former military pilots looking for civilian careers. Dale McKenzie would have been shown the door before he’d reached reception.’

  ‘So how did he get into the cockpit?’

  ‘Self–financing,’ Griffin replied. ‘If somebody puts up the money for their own training, either at a flight school or an airline, then all they have to do is pass the entrance exams showing that they have the intelligence and aptitude to become a pilot. McKenzie may have flunked college but he’s clearly no idiot. If he showed up with the money and passed the exams, then he could have got in.’

  Olsen frowned as he folded his arms again and leaned back in his seat.

  ‘So he got himself some serious money from somewhere.’

  ‘And all we need to do is track it down,’ Maietta said. ‘He must have had accounts that he would have used to pay the airline for his training. If he did kill those girls and take their money, then we could trace it all the way back to the accounts of origin. If McKenzie can’t explain where he got it from…’

  ‘… then it’s enough to maybe charge him,’ Olsen agreed. ‘You think that he’s pulling a similar stunt here with Sheila McKenzie?’

  ‘She’s worth a lot more than any of the other victims,’ Griffin said, ‘although he didn’t previously marry and kept himself very much out of sight.’

  ‘And Sheila McKenzie’s an orphan,’ Maietta pointed out. ‘It fits the kind of target he’d go for, if he’s our man.’

  ‘Maybe he got what he wanted before, financially,’ Griffin said, ‘but this time he’s got a new problem. We looked into Sheila McKenzie’s financials at the gallery, and she’s on the verge of bankruptcy. If her bubble bursts then Dale McKenzie loses everything too because he can’t support their home on his captain’s salary. What if he’s decided to pull the plug on her before she loses everything and doesn’t think we’ll make the connection with the other homicides?’

  ‘Suicides,’ Olsen corrected, ‘for now. Okay, I’ll talk to the District Attorney’s office and get the warrant. Where’s McKenzie right now?’

  ‘He’s got himself grounded apparently,’ Maietta said. ‘We’re looking for him.’

  ‘We’ll watch him,’ Olsen said, ‘but no arrests. Get some uniforms to locate him. If we’ve got the right man, let’s make sure we can pin him for all the murders and not just his wife’s abduction. And you, Griffin?’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘I want your ass out of this office before mine, is that understood?’

  ‘I can finish this,’ Griffin replied, ‘and we can…’

  ‘Let the night shift handle the watch details and pick up the warrants,’ Olsen interrupted him.’ ‘You have a wife waiting for you, or am I mistaken?’

  Griffin’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Olsen said as he slid his jacket on. ‘Now fuck off home for a nice weekend or whatever it is you decide to do, and don’t come back until your roster says you have to.’

  ***

  34

  Ally stood in the rain beneath the shelter of an acacia and waited as the sky darkened and the streetlights began to glow against the onrushing gloom.

  Her umbrella was useless in this sort of weather, and her raincoat did nothing to keep out the deepening chill that was sweeping in from the north. The clouds above tumbled and spat their freezing rain down on the town as though insulting it before leaving for more interesting climes.

  She tried Kathryn’s cell phone one more time, but once again caught the answerphone message. She grimaced and shook her head. Kathryn worked for the police and Ally knew that she was heavily invested in her first client, but it wasn’t like her not to answer her phone or at least get back within a reasonable time.

  A small, somewhat superstitious part of her wondered whether the storm clouds were some kind of cosmic warning, the universe’s karma pulled out of synch by her decision to meet Stephen. Everything had gotten out of hand, everything had gone too far and she was the only one still thinking straight enough to put it right.

  From out of the gloom a large, expensive–looking glossy black car pulled into the sidewalk. Ally did not recognise the car, but one of the windows wound down electrically and to her surprise Stephen leaned over so that she could see him.

  ‘Get in, before you go and drown!’

  Ally, already half drenched by the gusting squalls, hesitated. This was not something that Kathryn would want, but then if she refused would it alert Stephen to what was coming? Another sodden gust swept across Ally and she hurried over to Stephen’s car and opened the door, which clunked heavily as though to demonstrate its expensiveness. She clambered in, slumping into the passenger seat alongside Stephen and slamming her door shut.

  ‘Nice car,’ she said as she looked around her. Leather seats, walnut veneer dashboard, sumptuous fittings, air con. ‘What happened to that crappy old thing you and Kathryn were driving around in?’

  ‘It’s my company car, not our personal one,’ Stephen replied. ‘How’s you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Ally said. ‘You?’

  Stephen sat back in his seat as though preparing himself. The wind and rain drummed on the windshield as he spoke. ‘Ally, I think that I’ve made a terrible mistake and I need your help.’

  Ally chose her words with care. ‘Okay, what’s happened?’

  ‘I think that Kathryn is going to leave me,’ Stephen said, ‘and I wouldn’t blame her if she did. Ally, I’ve been seeing somebody else.’

  Ally�
��s shoulders sank. ‘For how long?’

  ‘A while now. It’s not serious, hell it wasn’t even intentional. It just kind of happened, office stuff, you know?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ally said, wishing briefly that she had more amorous office encounters than she did. ‘Happens to everyone.’ Ally savoured the warm air billowing into the car’s interior from the air–con. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, let the breath out and started talking. ‘Kathryn came to me a few days ago. She told me that you were having an affair.’

  Stephen stared at Ally for a long time before he replied. ‘It’s been complicated.’

  ‘But why cheat on Kathryn, Stephen? Why? She loves you, you know that don’t you?’

  Stephen grinned tightly. ‘I don’t think that there’s been much love between us for a while now, Ally. Listen, I need to know: has Kathryn been trying to patch things up between us or something? I know that she’s been trying very hard but it’s been difficult for me. Work has been horrendous, I’ve not been there for her and I fear that if I don’t do something soon I’ll lose her forever.’

  Ally sighed again.

  ‘Kathryn told me that she’d decided to do something about your infidelity,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but then she started doing things.’

  ‘Things?’ Stephen echoed. ‘What things?’

  ‘She took you to a restaurant that she knew you loved going to with your other woman,’ Ally said. ‘Forced you into asking Kathryn to marry, knowing that you would be uncomfortable with everything. Then she decided to try to make you think that she was pregnant, and that you should buy a bigger house, anything she could think of to see if you would crack and explain to her what was really going on.’

  Stephen was watching her with an intense expression on his features, as though studying a complex maths problem.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘She wanted to find out just how much she means to you,’ Ally said finally. ‘She wants you back, Stephen. She knows about the affair but she wants you in her life and I’ve been spending all this time worrying that she might go too far and drive you away.’