Magic City Murder

by C S Davis

  “Hello?” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “This is Lockhart, I’m a private investigator looking for Becky,” I said.

  The female voice sighed, “That’s me, I’m glad you called. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk at the clinic in front of Dr. Yu.”

  I took out my notepad and a pen in the hopes she would have useful information. “No problem at all, it happens all the time. So, what’s on your mind?”

  Becky’s voice seemed constrained and nervous as she spoke. “There have been some things that haven’t been sitting well with me and they may all end up being nothing, but when Stephanie died, I felt more uncomfortable. I don’t have any proof of anything I am thinking in my head so maybe I’m just crazy, but I feel like I need to tell someone,” she explained.

  I nodded though she could not see me. “OK, go ahead,” I said.

  “About a month ago Stephanie started whispering to me from time to time about different patients Dr. Yu was seeing. She thought some of what was written in the medical files did not make sense for the patients. I don’t know what’s in the files, I just take the calls and set up appointments. But some of what Stephanie told me kind of made sense. Usually, the patients with the most problems were the most suspicious to her. Like she would say, ‘remember that x-ray we did on her’ as a patient was leaving. We have an x-ray machine, but it hasn’t worked in like five years when the previous doctor owned the practice. Or Stephanie would mention different types of therapy or injections that we never offered being put into the charts.”

  It was fascinating listening to her, someone who wanted to be honest so bad and felt like they were in a difficult situation. “What would be the benefit of putting things in the chart that did not actually happen?” I asked. I wanted to hear her say it.

  “Well,” Becky cleared her throat. “I think Dr. Yu is committing Medicare fraud. She does all her own billing. I’ve worked in doctor’s offices before and I’ve never seen a doctor handle all their own stuff like that.”

  “That seems very interesting,” I said. “Are you aware of any of Dr. Yu’s previous places of employment?”

  “No, I just know she’s from Chicago,” said Becky.

  I wondered about the doctor’s actual reasons for living the Windy City. “Did Stephanie ever question Dr. Yu openly about what she was discussing with you? Did she confront her?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Becky. “Things just seemed a little tense towards the end. And it didn’t help that Stephanie would randomly come in and demand to know who was messing with her car which seemed to happen frequently.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, just things like her tire would be low on air, but not punctured. Or her mirrors would be moved.”

  I scribbled notes on my pad. “Could it have been a patient?” I asked.

  Becky said, “That’s what we thought at first and we never ruled it out, but it seemed very persistent. Sometimes a person would call and ask for her and when Stephanie would pick up the phone, it would be dead. So then, she thought I was messing with her. She kind of seemed to be unhappy with all of us before she died.” Her voice cracked and I could hear sniffling.

  “Hey, it’s okay, alright? Did you happen to make any notes of when someone called for her and ended up not being there?”

  “No, I didn’t write anything down.”

  “Do you remember what the person sounded like?” I asked.

  There was a pause. “It seemed to be more of a male voice, but I was not sure because they would just say ‘Stephanie please,’ and then that would be it.”

  “How many times did that happen?” I asked

  “Maybe two or three,” said Becky.

  I made more notes. I could not think of anything else to ask Becky, so I gave her the number of a Medicaid/Medicare fraud investigator with Montana who I had worked with in the past on some insurance cases and told her to keep in touch.

  Dr. Yu’s own sanity was fresh on my mind. She had not come up with any criminal history but that did not mean she was not capable of doing something rash. Though thinking back to her petite frame and Stephanie’s frame who seemed to have probably 50 pounds on Dr. Yu, I wondered if the older woman would have been able to kill Stephanie and then deal with her body to make it look like a suicide. It seemed like a stretch, but I learned long ago when I met Sonia not to understate women smaller in stature. Dynamite comes in small packages.

  I had closed my computer, fixed myself a drink and had just plopped down in my recliner when the phone rang. I peered at the number and sighed.

  “A little late in the evening for you, isn’t it?” I asked when I answered.

  A fiery response came from the receiver. “Do you realize our son drove all the way from Texas to Montana?”

  I could only manage a snarky reply. “Is that why his car is up here? That does explain a lot.”

  “Tell me you’re not okay with that,” said Sonia.

  I sighed. “No, I’m not okay with that, but it happened. I can’t go back and change it or stop him or talk him out of it. I expressed my displeasure when he got here as you probably are now and now, he has to ride the bus until summer. So, I doubt he’ll do it again. Though he will have to drive it back in August so he’ll have his car down there, so I guess he’ll do it one more time.”

  “Bullshit! You drive the fucking car, my son is not driving two days in the middle of nowhere again.”

  I rolled my eyes. “OK, how ‘bout this? I’ll sell it up here and then you can buy him another one. I’m sure there’s plenty of people in Montana who are dying to have a two-wheel drive car that sits close to the ground.”

  Sonia sighed. I could tell she was probably rubbing her eyes like she used to when she was irritated with me. “You are impossible,” she said. “Seriously, what are we going to do about this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re the good parent, that’s why you have him the majority of the year. You’ll figure something out.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t start that shi-” the line abruptly went dead. Then my cell phone lost power. That happens when you take the battery out.

  I would call her in the morning and apologize after she had some sleep and cooled down. I had been with Sonia long enough to know that when she is fired up, there is no point in discussing anything because it would fall on deaf ears. That’s why once we had split up, I could not help but goad her at times. It was like poking a bear with a stick 1,300 miles long.

  I thought about the image of her getting mad and slamming her own phone down in disgust. I sipped my drink and thought of the days when I would have found something sexy in her fiery temper. Maybe that was why I still provoked her now and then, just to have a bit of that memory.

  Chapter 6

  It was Saturday morning when I woke in my chair. My back was not happy that I had spent the night in the recliner. I could feel the sciatic nerve crying from my lower back all the way down my right leg. The time I had spent driving the past week had not helped either. I never thought I would get to the age when I would complain about aches and pains or let them get to me, but I guess that time had arrived.

  I made coffee before putting the battery back in my phone. I had a voicemail and a text message. The text was from Sonia. It simply said, “asshole.” The voicemail was from Polazzo. I quickly punched in the code for my mailbox and listened intently. “Lockhart, I’m emailing you some pictures. Give me a call when you’re not busy.”

  Walking over to my computer, I wondered what Polazzo could have sent me. I clicked around the desktop until my email opened and went to the message she had sent. There were several pictures of the rope that had presumably been around Stephanie’s neck and a few of the beam over where it had been draped and secured. I started with the rope.

  It seemed unremarkable at first glance, but Polazzo had zoomed in on certain sections. It seemed that the surface of parts of the rope had possibly rubbed against the wooden beam. The
rope was not frayed but was definitely discolored with some of the small fibers damaged while others were not. I examined the photographs of the beam. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I viewed the very close up shots. It seemed the top edges of the beam had marks where something had scraped against it. Polazzo was trying to show me what I had already believed. I dialed her number and took a swallow of coffee as the phone rang.

  “Did you see the photos?” Polazzo asked. No hello, no good morning. The number differed from the one I had previously talked with her on. I was guessing it was her personal cell phone.

  I took another sip of coffee. “So, you think someone hoisted her up there?” I asked.

  There was a brief pause. “I’m slowly becoming a believer,” she replied.

  “That’s the nice thing about evidence,” I explained. “You don’t have to take it on faith.”

  Polazzo gave a light chuckle. “Look, it’s a little political around my office with resources and whatnot, but I’m not going to rule on this until the toxicology comes back.”

  “So, no one’s going to investigate it for another month at least?” I asked.

  “I’m sure there’s plenty of investigating going on. You don’t seem like the type to let something go once you have your heart set on it,” she said.

  I chuckled. “Well, when it comes to investigative work, you get what you pay for,” I said.

  I said goodbye to Polazzo and looked over the photos again. The rope seemed like an average rope a person could get at any hardware store. I had hoped it would be something special for rock climbers or used in rappelling but no such luck. I wasn’t about to go around the commutable area of Billings asking random hardware store employees if they saw anyone suspicious buy a rope. It would be great if the real world worked like everything thinks it does from television. In that world, we would just send the rope to the lab and they would lift a latent fingerprint off of the rope even though the killer wore gloves and the evidence would be corroborated by an ATM camera 100 yards away that caught a reflection in the window of a parked car that showed the whole murder take place. Unfortunately, there would be no forensics, no fancy video stuff. If anything kicked up evidence of a murder, it would take old fashioned police work. I had never been an actual police officer, so I did not like my chances.

  I tried calling Stephanie’s sister, Eve, to see if and when there would be a funeral. There was no answer. I had looked her number up in one of the databases I subscribe to so there was a good chance I was not even calling the right person. My searching of funeral homes in Billings came up short. It bothered me Stephanie’s parents had never contacted me. It was possible they did not want to entertain the possibility of anyone killing their daughter and just wanted to move on. Some people were like that. Others had the opposite problem and could not accept that their son or daughter could possibly do something like that to themselves so it must have been someone else. I prayed that I would never have to be confronted with a situation like that with Noel.

  If I could find a phone number for Stephanie’s parents, I might contact them directly. I did some searching but came up short. I was having a hard time identifying them. A genealogy site that was very invasive as far as privacy goes had a person who matched Stephanie’s name and age and last known location. The possible parents listed for her were Gary and Linda York. I did more searching and was saddened to see the results. Linda York had passed away a few years before and Gary appeared to reside in a nursing home.

  I phoned the nursing home in Arizona. At least that part of Eve’s story was not a total lie. A male voice answered. I told them who I was and that I was trying to contact Gary York because I was unsure if he knew of his daughter’s death. The male sighed. “Mr. York was already contacted by the police in Montana, but I doubt he remembers. He doesn’t have the best memory these days if you take my meaning.”

  I certainly did. He was probably being careful not to violate HIPPA while letting me know the poor old guy had Alzheimer's or dementia. Either way, I felt for the man. He was probably around 70 which seemed too young to be suffering that way. Then again, if my wife had died before me, I probably wouldn’t want to be able to think about it either. Mr. York would never know he had outlived one of his daughters. Maybe the memory loss was a blessing.

  Out of options, I phoned Polazzo again and asked if anyone had made arrangements to retrieve Stephanie’s body. She said Stephanie’s body was unclaimed and would likely go to a medical school. I shuddered thinking about students cutting her up while commenting about the marks on her neck.

  Hours went by with me sitting in front of the computer making numerous notes on things related to the York family. I finally found some work history on Eve. It seemed she was a dancer at the strip club in Lockwood, a suburb of Billings. It seemed cliché, a young girl taking her clothes off trying to pay her way through school. I had no way of knowing her work schedule, so I decided just to call and ask. The one piece of information I had on my side was that I knew her real name.

  I could hear music in the background when a female voice answered. “Hi, Eve forgot her phone in my car last night, has she made it into work yet?” I asked.

  “Eve? Oh Sierra, no, she’s not here until later.”

  I said thanks and hung up. I guessed she would work the late shift and be there until the place closed. It was still early, and the bar would be open until 2 a.m. I had a bite to eat and then took a power nap.

  I drove back up to Billings and grabbed a coffee before going to the club in Lockwood. I sat in a parking lot across the street for about an hour trying to identify her car. There were two Subarus, but I was fairly certain I recognized the same car I had seen at Eve’s house. The distance was great enough that I needed binoculars, so I was fairly sure no one noticed me. At a little after 2 a.m., a couple of girls came out with what looked to be a bouncer. The large man peered around the parking lot, probably to make sure their biggest fans were not hanging around waiting for any of them. He glanced around and walked back into the club. It was a half-ass job at protecting them.

  Eve was wearing a beanie cap and long, gray coat. She got in her car and started it up. After waiting a few minutes for it to warm up, she pulled out of the parking lot. I followed.

  There was always a car or two between us as I tailed her to wherever she was going. It did not seem she was going home. After a few turns, we ended up at an all-night diner on the south side of town. She pulled in and entered the diner. I could see her sit at a booth from the window. I followed her inside and sat down across from her. Eve looked up from a menu and was stunned at the sudden intrusion.

  “Eating this late usually gives me terrible heartburn, but I’ll give it a go if you don’t mind company,” I said.

  She looked around. “Did you follow me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said plainly. “Which means I now know what you do to support yourself. Don’t worry though, I didn’t let curiosity get the better of me and go inside.”

  A waitress walked up and sensed the unease portrayed by Eve. She gave me the side-eye as she asked, “You two doing okay over here? Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Coffee,” we said in unison.

  She nodded and disappeared.

  “Why are you following me?” asked Eve.

  “Why did you lie about your parents?” I asked.

  “I didn’t lie,” she scoffed. “I just didn’t tell you everything.”

  I chuckled. “Lying by omission. Whatever, it doesn’t bother me.”

  We sat in silence for a moment and the coffee arrived. “Anything to eat or just coffee?” the waitress asked.

  “I’m not hungry,” said Eve.

  I prodded her, “Oh come on, I’m buying. I’ll have a couple of eggs over medium and some toast.”

  After a moment, she gave in and ordered pancakes with bacon.

  “So seriously, why are you following me?” she asked.

  “How else am I going to talk to
you? You won’t answer your phone.” I explained.

  She nodded. “Yeah, when someone doesn’t answer their phone, that usually means they don’t want to talk. That doesn’t mean you should go stalk them and corner them in the middle of the night.”

  I yawned and stretched. “Yeah, this is late for me. I wish you could have worked at a library or bank or anything with more reasonable hours.”

  Eve stared out the window at the refinery lights in the distance. Exxon had a plant not too far from the diner. It was one of three refineries in the Billings area. She looked different when she was sober. At her home, she had seemed sad and out of it while she was kicking back vodka. Then again, her sister had just died so I guess she was allowed. Her curly dark brown hair was pulled back under her cap. Her eyes looked almost hazel. She really was a very pretty girl.

  “When’s the last time you’ve seen your dad?” I asked.

  Eve continued to stare out the window as she answered. “I’ve never known my dad.”

  I guessed she was referring to her biological father. “Okay, when’s the last time you talked with Mr. York?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not since high school.”

  “When did your mom die?” I asked.

  She told me a few years before which was about the time frame I had guessed. It had been breast cancer found too late.

  “Did you have a better relationship with her than your dad?” I asked.

  Eve said bluntly, “My dad was a mean old prick who liked to touch me more and more as I got older and Mom allowed it. So that’s how my relationship with her was.”

  I felt a pain in my stomach as her eyes welled up but not a single tear fell across her cheek. I finally croaked out my next question, “Did the same happen to Stephanie?” I asked.