Ogrodnik

by Gary Coffin

  “That sounds accurate.”

  “So you discovered the murderer but have yet to find out why your father was murdered?” asked the chief.

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you have any theories on that matter?”

  “I do not. I was hoping to get some information out of the murderer,” Elliot lied, not wanting to give them any more than they already had.

  “Rest assured, Mr. Forsman, that we will find out everything there is to know regarding the motives of our suspect.

  “The suspect appears to be at home at this time. We’ve got a car watching the house just in case he moves, but I’m sending Detectives Duval and Durocher over there as soon as we’re finished here. My advice to you and Ms. Goldstein is to go home and wait for a phone call. We already have enough bodies on this case and don’t want to add any others, especially yours.”

  “Questions?” said the chief as a dismissal.

  Elliot and Rivka left the office without further discussion. They were both experienced enough to know that they were being shut down and that nothing they could say would change that. When Elliot got into the elevator and turned to face the closing doors, he had a view of Doyle’s office door down the hallway and through a glass wall. He caught a glimpse of a man coming from the left and walking into Doyle’s office without knocking or hesitation. The elevator descended, and Elliot contemplated on what he had seen: a man who walked with an air of authority, a man who was accustomed to being in charge, the laser straight posture of a career soldier. The polished pate of Enver Yilmaz, Banik’s bloodhound.

  Elliot and Riv walked back to the car in silence.

  “What did you think of that?” asked Riv, back in the car.

  “I think I don’t trust anyone in that room. Do you know the two detectives?”

  “I know of them. Rene Duval and Robert Durocher. They’ve been partners forever and are known as ‘Les RD Boys' within the force. They’re also notorious swag masters.”

  “Les RD Boys! I like that,” said Elliot with a chuckle. “What’s a swag master?”

  “Swag is something that is given out for free. It’s usually a promotional knickknack. In their case, it’s coffee, donuts, burgers, fries, whatever. It’s been said that they haven’t bought a breakfast or lunch this century. Does that make them crooked cops? I don’t know, but there is something unethical about milking the system the way they do.”

  “What about the chief? Do you know him?”

  “No, he wasn’t in office when I was a cop. I hear he came up through the system and worked vice for many years.”

  “It looks like we don’t have a lot of choice about working the Kulas angle. Let’s get back to the office and regroup.”

  Elliot reached over to pick up the ringing phone back at JFK.

  “That’s me,” he answered.

  “Yes, I know where it is. We’ll be right over.”

  “That was Detective Duval. They’re at the suspect’s house, and he says there’s been a break in the case. He invited us to the house so he can fill us in personally,” said Elliot as he grabbed his keys.

  When they got to the house, there was already a fleet of squad cars and emergency vehicles out front. That told Elliot and Rivka that the suspect would not be answering any questions. The officer at the door let them pass without issue, and they entered the small, outdated house into a warren of frenetic activity. Detective Duval met them in the kitchen that was being used as a staging area for the lab technicians. Looking around, Elliot could see that no woman had a hand in the décor for this house. The curtains were chosen for their ability keep out the light, not their decorative appeal, and the Arborite kitchen set could have been found in any home in America fifty years ago. Through the din, he could see that most of the activity was centered in the living room, but he’d have to get past Duval before moving on.

  “What happened?” Elliot asked.

  “Durocher and I knocked on the door. After getting no answer, we entered the building under the pretense that we heard noises. We found Mr. Kulas in the living room chair with his brains all over the wall—suicide. The scene is being processed as we speak,“ Duval said with little interest.

  “Was there a note?”

  “No note. We found a gun on the floor by his dead hand and a folder on the table linking him to your father’s murder.”

  “Linking? How so?”

  “The folder contained newspaper clippings about the death of a child due to a brain aneurism a few years ago. The clippings tell the story about a child who had recently been in to see your father about recurring headaches and was discharged without the proper diagnoses. The parents tried to sue, but the courts ruled in your father’s favor. We don’t know the nature of the connection between the kid and the stiff, but it seems obvious that there was a link. Our theory is that he killed your old man for revenge or as a vendetta, and then when he saw he was being tailed, he panicked and killed the tail. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe he thought there was no way out for him. In any case, he ate his gun.”

  Elliot remembered the child. It had disturbed his father for months and was probably one of the reasons for his eventual retirement. “Can we look at the scene?”

  “There’s nothing to see. We’ve been over every inch of the room, and other than the items I told you about, it’s clean,” said Duval trying to steer them out of the house.

  “Well, if there’s nothing to see, then it doesn’t matter if I take a look,” said Elliot as he sidestepped Duval and entered the living room.

  The room was decorated by the same person who had adorned the kitchen. Dark, heavy curtains tried to keep the sun out and the dank odor of moldy something hanging in the air. The technicians had pulled back the curtains to let some light in for their work, but they couldn’t as easily wash twenty years of smoke from the windows. The sun coming in had a yellowish hue that bathed the room in a light that made Elliot feel like he was watching an old TV show.

  The victim was as advertised. It was the same guy Elliot had seen in the coffee shop photos except for a large exit wound in the back of his head where a bald spot may have been. He couldn’t see much of his face as he had slumped face first onto the arm of the armchair after the shot. The gun that Duval had told them about had already been bagged and was probably on its way to the lab along with the other trace evidence they would have taken. Elliot could see the blood splatter and an accompanying bullet hole on the wall behind the chair. The head would have dropped down to the oversized, padded arm of the armchair where it still rested. On the floor beneath the arm of the chair was a pool of blood that was already starting to thicken. He bent down to look at something in the congeal and pulled out his pen to further explore a few small lumps.

  He stood up and surveyed the room holistically to see if there was anything out of place. Everything was out of place in this house. Piles of clutter filled every corner of the room, probably gone unnoticed for years. The only areas that looked as if they were used were the chair and coffee table in front of the TV and side table where the ashtray, cigarettes, and presumably a beer would sit. There was no beer today, but the cigarettes and matches were sitting beside the ashtray. Elliot inspected the ashtray looking for different cigarette brands but found they were all the same, Players Light. He picked up the matches hoping to find a phone number inside; again, no such luck.

  “Duval, I wonder if I can have a look at the file folder.”

  “When they’ve finished processing the contents, I will request that you have a look,” he replied without much conviction.

  “What do you know about the vic?”

  “That’ll be in my report.”

  “I think we’re done here, Detective. Thanks for your cooperation,” he said as they turned to leave.

  On the way out, Elliot stopped at the white van, opened the passenger side door and leaned in.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Rivka.

  “I’m not sure.“ />
  The passenger seat area was devoid of the garbage that he saw on the driver’s side. The only sign that someone had been sitting in the passenger seat lately was some dried dirt on the floor. He picked up a piece and crushed it between his fingers.

  He looked across to the driver’s seat and saw empty coffee cups lying crushed on the floor and an overfull ashtray full of Players Light cigarette butts. He ignored it all and backed out of the van.

  “Anything in the van?” Rivka asked.

  “Nothing noteworthy.”

  “What did you make of the suicide?”

  “I saw enough to know that it was staged.“

  “Do tell, Maven.”

  “He shot himself through the mouth. I found a couple of teeth bits in the blood pool, which tells me that the gun was fired through clenched teeth. Nobody would do that intentionally. He was probably subdued and someone put the gun in his hand and pulled the trigger for him.”

  “Do you think the RD boys set it up?”

  “If they didn’t set it up, then they’re incompetent. It’s too neat and tidy to be real.”

  “You think the chief is involved?”

  “We can’t discount it. There’s something fishy about him.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I saw Yilmaz enter his office after we left yesterday,“ Elliot let that sink in for a moment.

  “Did you notice the way he rolled the quarter over his knuckles and used the term ‘all in’? Those are actions you’d expect to see from a gambler. Think about the temptation he was exposed to by working vice all those years. If he is a gambler, it’s possible he’s gotten himself into trouble over time. I know there’s a lot of people who gamble, and that doesn’t make them crooks, but I wonder how many of them are high profile public figures and wear fake Rolexes.”

  “His watch is a fake?”

  “The second hand on all Rolexes jumps from second to second. The watch he was wearing had a smooth, sweeping second hand, a sure sign of a fake. I was also looking for tells during his speech. He didn’t give much away, mainly because he was merely reiterating facts, but when he said that 'we will find out everything there is to know regarding the motives of our suspect,’ he touched his nose and looked up to his right for a second. That was almost certainly a lie. When a person lies, the brain subconsciously sends instructions to suppress the deceitful words that are being spoken. The nose touch brings the hand up in a veiled attempt to cover the mouth and keep the words in. Looking up to the right usually indicates that a person is exercising the right side of their brain which, in this case, is his imagination. Lying takes imagination. He also exposed some of his feelings.“

  “How so?”

  “When he introduced us to Les RD Boys, I saw his mouth twitch. The left side of his mouth twitched upward, just for a moment, no more than a tenth of a second. That’s a sign of contempt. Whatever his relationship is with Les RD Boys, he doesn’t think much of them."

  “You have to teach me what you look for one of these days.”

  “You already know more than you think. It’s what a policeman might call gut feelings or instinct. You just haven’t formalized it the way I have.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Rivka asked.

  “There’s nothing to indicate that the police were involved in this, but let’s let them think the case has been nicely wrapped up and ready to close and that we’re no longer pursuing it. “

  “Next steps?” Rivka asked.

  “We still don’t know why my father was killed. We think that Biovonix played a part in the murder but have nothing to go on. There’s still the matter of the big guy in the van. The police don’t know that we know about him. Who is he, and how do we find him? We have to assume he’s working for Biovonix. Is he also the Stungun Killer? If so, what is his involvement with this case? Are they related? And, we still need to know if the police are involved and, if so, to what degree? My gut and my father’s instincts tell me that they are involved. If they are turning a blind eye to criminal activities, that’s one thing. If they are actively murdering suspects to bury evidence, that’s quite another. It’s something we have to be wary of, and it scares the hell out of me. Whatever we do, we have to do it quietly.”

  “I’ll pursue Ogrodnik and the Stungun angle and see if I can uncover new connections with Rhonda Carling,“ said Rivka.

  “Good plan. Dad thought there was something unusual in the way that Biovonix was testing Isotin. That’s where I’m starting. “

  “What’s your plan?“ asked Rivka.

  “Pharmaceutical companies use CROs to perform most of their clinical human trials. Before they get to that stage, either the pharma company will perform pre-clinical testing on mice, or they send it to whatever university they are affiliated with. I’m going to start at the beginning and see where that takes me.”

  Elliot was dropping Rivka off when he felt a bee in his pocket. He waited for the second buzz before pulling out his phone.

  “Elliot speaking.”

  “Elliot, Joanie Mack here. Since I don’t see your car parked, I thought I’d better call to tell you there are two fire trucks parked in front of your house, and it’s not a courtesy call.”

  “Is there a fire?”

  “There was a fire. The firemen seem relatively relaxed right now, but you no longer have a front porch.”

  “On my way. Thanks, Joanie,” he replied. When he looked up, he saw Rivka staring at him like a startled lemur.

  “Apparently, there was a fire at my house. It sounds like it’s under control now, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Call me when you get there.”

  When Elliot arrived at his house, the fire trucks were still out front. The lights were no longer rotating, and he could see firemen re-winding hose, so he relaxed a bit. Making his way through a throng of onlookers, he approached the fighter who looked as if he were in charge and introduced himself.

  “I’m the owner of the house,” Elliot said. “What can you tell me?”

  “You must be Elliot Forsman. I’m Captain Ferras,” he said extending his hand. “We received an anonymous call that flames were coming from the front of the house. By the time we got here, the porch was pretty much gone.”

  Elliot stared at the house shaking his head slowly in disbelief. He wondered for a moment if the fire was just a coincidence. No, he thought, there’s no such thing as coincidences.

  “Is it safe to go in?”

  “The structure of the house is fine, but the front entrance and porch will need to be replaced. There’s also collateral water damage to the front hallway, the living room, and the basement underneath. Luckily, for you, the smoke stayed on the outside. You can go in, but you won’t be able to live here until it’s cleaned up. ”

  “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  “It was arson. No doubt about it,” said the captain as he walked over to the passenger side door of his emergency vehicle and pulled out a plastic bag. “We found this container on the lawn. The fire was started on the outside of the house, around the door and frame. The metal door and surrounding brick won’t burn easily, so it took a while for the porch floor and then overhead structure to catch and burn. You’re lucky, though. It looks like the house itself fared well.”

  “I don’t feel lucky.”

  “Mr. Forsman, I don’t know what you do for a living or if you’re in trouble, but I’d say that someone is sending you a message. “

  “What makes you say that?” Elliot replied as he turned to face the captain.

  “This was not a random act of vandalism. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. They could have easily burned the house down. It would have been much simpler to throw the accelerant into the house, but instead it was strategically spread over the bricks and metal front door—the two areas that would not burn well. In essence, the manner in which the accelerant was deployed delayed the burn process and gave us the time to put the fire out before the entire
house was gone.”

  “The front door was locked, so he couldn’t have thrown the gas container inside,” replied Elliot playing devil’s advocate.

  “The door was unlocked, Mr. Forsman. I tried it myself, and just for the record, the accelerant was not gas. It was toluene.”

  That’s odd, thought Elliot. He always locked the doors.

  “Toluene? Isn’t that a solvent?”

  “Yes. It’s used mostly as an industrial solvent or as a gasoline additive for extra performance. We don’t see it used often as an accelerant because it’s just not as common as gasoline. But because it burns so much hotter than gasoline, it could have advantages for those who know how to use it. People who handle and use accelerants on a regular basis would develop an affinity for a given product. These people would prefer to always use the same accelerant as they would get accustomed to the product and be able to take advantage of its unique characteristics.”

  “What type of professions work with fire?”

  “Firemen, of course, certain armed forces units, specialized insurance investigators and the like.”

  “Thanks for the info, Captain,” replied Elliot as he started toward the house.

  “Captain, one more question. Have you ever experienced other arson jobs using toluene?“

  “Yes, I have. Let me think,” he said as he squinted. “The last time I saw this was quite a while ago, maybe eight or nine years, when the Waller Building at McGill University was torched. There was no mistaking the intent there. By the time we responded, the entire building was gone.”

  Elliot remembered the event well. The Waller Building was where McGill University conducted their pre-clinical drug trials. They had lost everything, years of tissue cultures, genetically modified mice, as well as months of data from their ongoing trials. Essentially, the entire pre-clinical program was put on hold for over a year while they found a new home and started up the practice again. Elliot could not ignore the circumstances of the fire and its connection to pharmaceuticals. He did not believe in coincidences but could not fathom how a fire eight years ago could be connected to the recent happenings and his father’s death.