Stone Cold

by Dean Crawford

  Kathryn nodded.

  ‘He’s an expert liar, Jane,’ she said. ‘He had me fooled for years and his wife too. Don’t let the bastard worm his way out of this one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Maietta said as she got up from her seat. ‘Time we’re done he’ll confess to starting World War Two.’

  ***

  47

  Griffin sat in silence as he stared across the table in the interview room.

  Dale McKenzie sat opposite him, his wrists handcuffed to a steel restraint bolted to the table. His nose was bandaged with blood–stained medical dressing, as was his right eye which wept a thin trickle of blood down his cheek.

  Griffin slowly placed a series of sealed, transparent evidence bags on the table between them. One contained the pistol used to shoot Sheila McKenzie; the next, a syringe; the next, a bottle of fluid labelled Pancuronium bromide.

  McKenzie did not move, nor did his expression falter. He looked up expectantly at Griffin.

  ‘Anything you want to say, Mr McKenzie?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘I want my lawyer.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get your lawyer,’ Griffin assured him. ‘But not just yet. Reason is, we have so much evidence here that it’s overwhelming.’

  ‘What evidence?’ McKenzie spat back at him. ‘I’ve never seen any of those things in my life.’

  Griffin raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Go to hell,’ McKenzie said. ‘You’ve been after me for abducting my wife ever since I came to you. Since I came to you! Don’t you find that a little odd, detective? That I would abduct my own wife and then come straight to the damned police?’

  ‘If you were a very clever, scheming man, then no I would not,’ Griffin replied. ‘And being as you shot her, I’m guessing that you didn’t care so much for her anyway.’

  ‘Shot her?’ McKenzie echoed. ‘What do you mean? I haven’t shot anybody!’

  Griffin waved McKenzie down with lazy wafts of his hand. ‘Yeah, yeah, we hear you. You didn’t do any of it, right? It’s all just a big set up and you’re innocent of any crime.’

  ‘I am innocent!’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not what your wife says.’

  McKenzie frowned. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Oh damn, didn’t anybody tell you? She survived,’ Griffin replied. ‘She’s fingered you for the shooter.’

  McKenzie’s face flushed with rage. ‘I didn’t abduct her!’

  ‘Course you didn’t,’ Griffin agreed as he gestured to the bagged bottle, ‘just like you didn’t pump Kathryn Stone full of that shit and try to drown her in a faked suicide. Just like you didn’t attack Ally Robinson.’

  McKenzie strained against his cuffs.

  ‘Kathryn was winding me up,’ he snapped, ‘and that Ally bitch was right behind her the whole way. They did it together, the two of them, set this whole thing up. I lost my temper, fair enough, but who wouldn’t after what they put me through?’

  ‘After what they put you through?’ Griffin echoed again. ‘Dale, all I want to know is the following; did you abduct Sheila, did she set the whole thing up, or were you in it together?’

  McKenzie glared at Griffin.

  ‘None of the above. I’m innocent.’

  Griffin smiled and the reached down into his lap. He took out four photographs, each an image of a woman’s face taken on a mortuary slab. He laid them down, slowly, one after the other in front of McKenzie, who looked down at them. Griffin saw the pilot’s jaw tense, saw his gaze flick from one lifeless corpse’s image to another.

  ‘Recognise any of these?’ Griffin asked.

  McKenzie’s mouth gaped as he tried to speak. ‘I’ve never seen any of them in my life,’ he muttered.

  ‘Maybe not your life,’ Griffin said, ‘but how about in Stephen Hollister’s life?’

  Dale glared up at Griffin as though to retort, but the words were caught on his lips and Griffin smiled.

  ‘Guess what, Dale? You’re busted. As we speak these four victim’s blood samples, saved in a cold–case chiller in a forensic laboratory, are being tested for Pancuronium bromide, the same stuff you used to incapacitate both Ally Robinson and Kathryn Stone. We also have here the flight plans from an airline you previously flew for, which places you in the same city, at the same time, as these women when they died. Moreover, Dale, how would you feel about letting us know how you came about the money that you used for your flight training?’

  Dale’s eyes flicked up to meet Griffin’s, a flare of panic flickering in them as the detective went on.

  ‘You see, we were able to trace it all back to an account that was set up when you first applied to become a pilot. That account was opened with cash, with more filtered in over time from other accounts belonging to you. Thing is, those accounts trace back to money stolen from the bank account of this victim, Meredith Turner.’ Griffin tapped the photograph on the left. ‘You were living within a quarter mile of her house at the time, Dale, flipping burgers in Las Vegas.’

  ‘This is entrapment,’ McKenzie growled.

  ‘No,’ Griffin said, ‘it’s called beyond reasonable doubt, and it’s enough for a charge sheet and happy faces at the GFPD cold–case unit. You know it Dale, so forget the theatricals okay? You’re under arrest for the murder of four women, the attempted murder of three more, extortion, kidnapping with intent, assaulting a police officer, misdirecting officers of the law during an investigation…. You want me to go on?’

  ‘It’s all circumstantial,’ McKenzie hissed.

  ‘Is it?’ Griffin challenged. ‘Then maybe you could explain how it is that your alter–ego, “Stephen”, purchased a month–long lease on a storage unit downtown, the same one we found your wife shot half–to–death in?’

  McKenzie’s jaw gaped open as he stared at Griffin. ‘I didn’t buy any such thing and…’ McKenzie’s eyes flared with alarm as a realisation flashed across them. Griffin thought he saw a glimmer of horror there. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Not so much the innocent man now, are we?’ Griffin growled, and shoved another plastic–sealed item across the table in front of the pilot. ‘Strange, how this tablet computer was used to access the same website as that which Stephen used to buy the storage lease. This is your tablet, correct?’

  Dale McKenzie seemed to shrivel as he stared at the tablet computer. Griffin reached down to the floor beneath the table and produced a small mahogany lock–box sealed in a plastic bag that he placed in front of Dale. The pilot looked at the box, his eyes drawn to it as though by some unseen force and his lips parted as he drew an intake of breath.

  ‘That’s right, Dale,’ Griffin said. ‘This one little box ties you to everything, doesn’t it? Four murders. You think a judge is going to have any problem with your conviction, based on the evidence we can put in front of them? Based on your little box of mementos here? You think a jury is going to shrug and say that we got it all wrong?’

  ‘I didn’t abduct my wife,’ McKenzie whispered, his eyes still fixated upon the box.

  Griffin leaned forward and tapped the photographs.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about the abduction, McKenzie. Your wife will survive, Kathryn Stone is safe and Ally Robinson will also recover from what you did to her. The four women in these photographs will not and you’re in the frame for murdering all of them. What’s the chances Pancuronium bromide will be in their blood–work, Dale? And we’ve got sufficient motive for the abduction: that your wife was on the verge of bankruptcy and poor little Dale McKenzie didn’t fancy taking on the mortgage she had lumbered you both with in better days. Hell of a life insurance program you guys bought into. If Sheila was to die, all of those debts would just flutter away… Make this easy on yourself, Dale. Now’s the time to decide whether you want to spend the rest of your days in a cell or fry in a chair.’

  McKenzie’s shoulders seemed to sag as he stared vacantly at the images of the four dead women on the table before him. Griffin leaned forward and tapped the images one
by one.

  ‘They may not have had families but they all had lives, Dale,’ he said. ‘Friends, people who cared about them and have spent the last decade suffering, wondering what on earth happened to them. They had lives that you took. Why? You lost your twin brother, Stephen. You know what it’s like to lose somebody close. Why the hell would you put these people through that same pain?’

  McKenzie did not look up as he replied, his gaze affixed to the photographs.

  ‘Stephen never died,’ he whispered. ‘I gave him life again. Haven’t you ever wondered detective, what it would be like to live a life without rules, without laws, without restraint? A life that you can just walk away from at any point, when you’re bored of it or when it just gets too difficult?’ McKenzie looked up at Griffin finally. ‘A life where you don’t have to care?’

  Griffin shook his head. ‘You could have lived that life without wrecking half a dozen others.’

  McKenzie shook his head.

  ‘No, detective, I couldn’t. Tell me that you wouldn’t kill if you could do so without fear of the law, or rape or steal or plunder. Tell me you wouldn’t invade lives just for the thrill of it, control and dominate and then cast aside the old life for a new one.’

  Griffin stared at McKenzie for a long moment before he replied.

  ‘The only mind that would really think like that is the kind that isn’t strong enough to face real life. You’re a coward, McKenzie, nothing more and nothing less, and what’s left of your life will be spent behind bars because even if the prosecution hire a fucking chimpanzee to handle this case the jury will still send you down.’ Griffin looked up at the sergeant standing by the door. ‘Get this asshole back to holding.’

  ***

  48

  Griffin walked through the hospital ward just as the morning nurses were starting their shifts, brilliant sunshine beaming in golden shafts between the rows of beds as he searched for Ally Robinson. Maietta walked alongside him, having met him at the hospital entrance, and he could tell that she was watching him with interest.

  ‘You’ve got a bounce in your step all of a sudden,’ she observed. ‘Got lucky in the end last night, did we?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Griffin replied, but he couldn’t help the smile twisting the corners of his lips. He felt like a clown.

  Maietta made a soft whistling sound and nudged him with her elbow as they walked. ‘Load off your mind?’

  ‘Cut it out.’

  ‘Seriously.’

  Griffin glanced at Maietta, saw the genuine smile on her face. ‘Sure, things are looking up.’

  They walked into the ward and saw Robinson laying on a bed, propped up on pillows and staring out at the sunshine. The surgeon who had operated on her the previous night had informed them that the only thing that had saved Robinson from bleeding out was her obesity: the knife had not penetrated her deeply enough in any of the wounds to cause a fatal bleed.

  Ally Robinson had dragged herself almost a quarter of a mile once the drugs had worn off, along the side of the road on which she had been abandoned, before a passing motorist had spotted her and called 911.

  ‘Miss Robinson?’

  Griffin introduced himself and Maietta. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  Ally nodded. Her eyes were tired and her body was bandaged where she had been struck repeatedly by Dale McKenzie.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened?’ Maietta asked, all of the hard–edged street–kid attitude stripped from her voice and making her sound surprisingly gentle.

  ‘I got a call from a friend of mine,’ Ally said, ‘last night. She’s been having a hard time lately. I wanted to meet with her after work, to help her sort things out. Anyway, she didn’t pick up, but her boyfriend did.’

  ‘Kathryn Stone,’ Griffin said, identifying the friend. ‘How did you know my name, when you arrived at the hospital?’

  ‘Kathryn mentioned you once,’ Ally said. ‘She was helping you.’

  ‘And Kathryn’s boyfriend did this to you?’ Griffin asked, gesturing to Robinson’s wounds.

  She nodded, closing her eyes and looking away from them for a moment. ‘Yes.’

  Griffin looked at his notes for a while.

  ‘Do you recognise this woman?’ Maietta asked, holding out a picture of Sheila McKenzie to Robinson.

  Robinson squinted at the image and then shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Griffin pressed. ‘You don’t know who she is?’

  ‘No, I don’t know her.’

  ‘So, why would Kathryn’s boyfriend do this to you?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘Revenge,’ Ally whispered. ‘Kathryn was kind of abusing him after she found out that he was seeing another woman behind his back.’

  ‘And you were involved,’ Maietta said.

  ‘Yes,’ Robinson replied. ‘Not directly, but I kind of helped a little. Kathryn was about to leave her boyfriend, Stephen. She’d been able to access his laptop after he started lying to her, and she figured he was having an affair. She looked at his financials, and was able to figure out where this other woman lived.’

  ‘And you were helping her with all of this?’ Maietta asked.

  ‘I was her confidant,’ Robinson replied. ‘She told me all about the affair her boyfriend was having, and about how she was kind of playing tricks on him using her knowledge of his lies.’

  ‘Okay,’ Griffin said. ‘Here’s where I’ve got a problem. You see, last night we found the woman in the photograph lying in a pool of blood in a storage unit. She’d been shot.’

  Robinson stared at Griffin as her lips parted in horror. ‘What?’

  ‘She nearly died,’ Maietta added. ‘Attempted homicide, twenty to life.’

  ‘I didn’t shoot her!’ Robinson almost yelled. ‘And Kathryn hates guns!’

  ‘Then you’d better tell us everything,’ Griffin said. ‘Because somebody here is lying to us, and we need to find out whom.’

  Robinson sank back into her pillow. Her reply, when it came, was barely a whisper. ‘I don’t know anything, only that Kathryn was taunting Stephen.’

  ‘How did you get involved with her, with all of this?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘She asked me to buy some stuff,’ Robinson replied. ‘Said that she couldn’t get it herself without her boyfriend getting all suspicious of what she was up to.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’ Griffin demanded.

  ‘Tickets to a holiday resort,’ Robinson replied, ‘uh, some particular kind of aftershave and an engagement ring, of all things. She got him to propose to her in front of about a hundred people.’

  ‘Aftershave?’ Maietta asked. ‘What would she want with that?’

  ‘A gift I suppose, I didn’t ask too many questions.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘I don’t remember. Tickets to a vacation spot.’

  Griffin stared at Robinson. ‘Hunter’s Lodge?’

  ‘Yeah, that was it. She was planning a weekend away.’

  ‘And you paid cash for all of this?’ Robinson nodded. ‘And she told you what she was doing?’

  Robinson stared up at the ceiling as she replied. ‘Not all of it. I suspected she was up to something and that things might turn nasty if she continued. I kept telling her just to leave, to not get involved.’

  ‘And you didn’t find that odd at all?’ Griffin asked Robinson. ‘That she stayed put?’

  ‘Sure,’ Robinson replied. ‘But Kathryn’s been acting all kinds of strange lately. Like I said, she’s been under a lot of pressure with work and her relationship, or what was left of it.’

  ‘Yeah, her boyfriend,’ Griffin said, and pulled out a photograph of his own. ‘You recognise this man?’

  Robinson took one look at the photograph and then shuddered. ‘Yes, that’s Stephen.’

  ‘Stephen,’ Maietta echoed.

  ‘Stephen Hollister,’ Robinson said. ‘They’ve been together about three years.’
<
br />   ‘Dale McKenzie,’ Griffin corrected her.

  ‘Who?’

  Griffin slipped the photograph back into his pocket.

  ‘Stephen Hollister does not exist,’ he replied. ‘His real name is Dale McKenzie, and he’s currently in custody for the murders of four women.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Robinson gasped. ‘Is Kathryn okay?’

  Griffin smiled. ‘She’s safe. Is there anything else that you can tell us, anything at all?’

  Ally Robinson sighed and pinched her eyes with one hand. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t think straight right now. Kathryn was up to something, definitely, but I’m pretty sure she only told me what she needed to.’

  ‘Okay,’ Griffin said as he stood to follow Maietta from the room. ‘Take it easy, okay? We’ll need a statement from you at the precinct when you’re discharged.’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied.

  Griffin walked out of the room. Maietta shut the door behind them and looked up at him. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘She’s got no reason to lie,’ Griffin shrugged, ‘and if I’d just been stabbed half a dozen times I’d be screaming for justice. McKenzie did it.’

  ‘Fine,’ Maietta agreed. ‘That’s it, enough for one weekend. Get your ass home to Angela, I’ll see you Monday morning, ‘kay?’

  ‘You got it,’ Griffin nodded. ‘I’m just going to swing by Kathryn, see how she’s holding up.’

  Maietta didn’t reply other than to wave over her shoulder as she headed for the hospital exit.

  ***

  49

  It was going to take time to get used to limping about using a walking stick.

  Kathryn struggled around her bed as she packed her things back into her suitcase, which had been retrieved by the police from the back of her car when it had been pulled from the river. Her plight had reached the ears of the nurses tending to her, and to her amazement they had done their best to dry her clothes out on radiators all around the ward.

  A small act of kindness in a world that so often didn’t seem to care.