Magic City Murder

by C S Davis

  Chapter 12

  It was Sunday morning and 10 degrees was not bad for January. The ice on the lake was at about 14 inches which was great for fishing or driving a car across it. I had opted for taking the snowmobile and brought it all the way out to where I would drill the holes and set up the shelter.

  “So how long before they bite?” asked Eve. She had been patiently staring into her hole for about ten minutes. I was becoming skeptical if they were going to bite today.

  I started to explain how sometimes luck was just not on her side when she cut me off, exclaiming, “Oh, shit! I got one!”

  We slowly reeled in a beautiful rainbow trout. His skin was speckled with a pink band running the length of his body. Her excitement turned to concern as the trout lay on the ice flopping. “Oh, put him back! He’s hurt!”

  I rolled my eyes and then carefully took out the hook and placed the trout back in the water. He froze and began to slowly sink into the hole in the ice. “Is he dead?” asked Eve. As she spoke, the trout zipped away happy to be free and in its natural environment. “Yay!” exclaimed Eve, clapping.

  I chuckled.

  “What?” she asked, her cheeks blushing.

  I grabbed a beer and popped the top open. “That’s just the first time I’ve ever heard anyone yell ‘yay’ while ice fishing,” I explained. “Nothing wrong with it, just a first,” I said with a wink. I handed Eve the beer and grabbed another for myself. I held mine up for a toast. “Here’s to your first catch,” I said. “May it not be the last.”

  “Here, here,” said Eve as she clinked her can with mine.

  We fished for a while longer until Eve lost interest, then we packed everything up and tied the sleds to the snowmobile and dragged the gear back to the cabin. Eve ended the day having caught three fish to my one. We had tossed all the fish back, so we had dinner at The Lion's Paw Tavern in Roscoe. I guess you could say it was the first time Eve and I had been out together.

  Sam’s daughter Lil waited on us at the bar. She had a grin like a Cheshire cat when I walked in with Eve. In hindsight, I wonder if they ever worried about me. I had been a loner so they knew me save for the few times I brought Noel in. I ordered up an IPA and to my surprise Eve ordered a stout.

  “I didn’t take you for a dark beer kind of gal,” I said.

  Eve shrugged. “I used to bartend, so I had to try pretty much everything to be able to describe it to people. I guess I just kind of like everything now.”

  I replied, “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “You’re probably surprised because I was guzzling vodka the first time you met me.”

  I nodded.

  Eve nodded and looked embarrassed. “Yeah, that wasn’t a good look on me.”

  “Well, you look better now,” I said. “I know it hasn’t been long, but you seem to be holding up better than I probably would be.”

  “Oh?” she asked.

  I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a big baby, especially when it comes to family. I have a younger sister out in Florida I talk to now and then. We were closer when we were kids, but I don’t know what I would do if I lost her.” I took a drink from my beer. “That’s why I have to keep drinking and make sure I don’t outlive her.”

  Eve rolled her eyes.

  After dinner we went back to the cabin and fell asleep while watching a movie. Eve had to leave in the morning and start a normal schedule with her last semester of classes and she also started a job waiting tables the evening of the same day.

  She was already gone when my phone rang Monday morning. I stumbled out of bed and answered.

  “I have a late Christmas present for you,” said Polazzo.

  I yawned in her ear. “Yeah, what could that be?”

  “Got the toxicology results back on Stephanie York. She had normal levels of benzodiazepines for what she was prescribed, amphetamines, ketamine, and suxamethonium chloride. There was also some ethanol, so she had been drinking a little as well. Nasty combination.”

  I asked, “That suxametha-whatever. What is that? From what I looked up it looked like something to keep you from moving while in surgery.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I got in my research too, it’s a paralytic. It’s kind of weird that it was in her system at all. I’ve never heard of it being abused but if she was taking the other stuff, maybe she was experimenting. I don’t know,” said Polazzo.

  “So why is this a Christmas present again? Sounds like more questions again than answers.”

  Polazzo explained, “Well, because you can close your case for your client. It looks like a case of she was high on a lot of stuff and killed herself.”

  “She didn’t kill herself,” I said. “Someone killed her and a kid who she had catfished burnt the house down after.”

  Polazzo grumbled. “I had heard about the house, that’s a shame. From what I’m seeing, John, this is a suicide. That’s going to be my finding.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said.

  “I thought you would be happy,” said Polazzo. “You can put it to bed and move on to something else.”

  I hung up the phone without uttering another word.

  The house was gone along with any evidence. The body was now gone since Eve allowed her sister to be donated to a medical school. I was feeling like I was wasting my time when the image of Stephanie’s discolored face popped into my mind. The autopsy photo was my last image of her, and it was burned into my memory.

  My phone rang again, it was Jack Wagner, the deputy fire marshal.

  “Hey, Lockhart, the kid agreed to be interviewed, but he’s bringing his attorney” he said.

  I sighed. I hated attorneys. “Fantastic,” I said sarcastically. “When is our date?”

  “Tomorrow morning, you free to come up to the police station?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  We hung up. That was at least some good news aside from the lawyer part. I would spend the rest of the evening working on questions for Raymond and some kind of strategy. Things got trickier when attorneys were there. I couldn’t do my normal interview technique because I had someone sitting there that would call bullshit on most of what I said.

  The day got away from me and the evening was approaching. I was struggling how I would ask him about the night Stephanie died if I did not actually have any evidence of him being there. He also had the alibi of studying in his dorm and supposedly being on his computer.

  I hadn’t heard from my kid in a while, so I called Noel and asked him how he was doing. He gave me the typical short answers that teenagers give when you ask them about things they do not want to discuss. Since it was hard to get him to talk, I did most of the talking. I told him about the news I had got about the toxicology and how I suspected the guy who burned down her house as having some kind of connection.

  “But this guy says he was on his computer all night studying and I can check his browsing history to verify it,” I said.

  Noel was silent for a second before saying, “Yeah, but that can be done remotely.”

  “What do you mean remotely?” I asked.

  He explained, “I login to my computer at home all the time from my phone. It’s a remote desktop. It’s easy to do.”

  I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. “So, you can be on your computer in Dallas from your phone when you’re with me in Montana?”

  “Yeah,” said Noel.

  “How does that work?”

  “It’s just an app,” said Noel. Of course it was, there was an app for everything.

  “What kind of app?” I asked.

  Noel said, “It depends on the phone, but it probably says something about remote desktop in the name.”

  We chatted for a while longer and then got off the phone. I had a couple of ideas for how the next day’s interview would go. I hoped Wagner would be agreeable to it.

  I arrived the next day early and sat down with Wagner in an interview room at the Billings Police Department. It was a
small room with bland cinder block walls painted white. There was a round table in the center of the room with four chairs around it. The rooms always smelled stale from being closed off. A vent came in so they were also either too hot or cold. The idea was not to make the person being interviewed uncomfortable, that was just how they were designed.

  I had my normal notepad and pen. Wagner had a printed screenshot of Raymond’s RAV4 driving in view of the camera from the convenience store the night the house was set ablaze. He also had a voice recorder, notebook, and pen.

  Raymond arrived with his lawyer who went by Tina. She looked to be in her late 40s, had blonde hair cut in a short bob with long bangs sweeping over across her face. Tina wore a gray suit and skirt with leggings and warm boots with a matching heavy gray coat. She looked too expensive to be a public defender.

  Wagner greeted Raymond and we all sat around a round table with four chairs. Raymond seemed a little surprised to see me. Wagner told Raymond and his attorney Tina that the door was unlocked, he could leave at any point but he would record the interview and read him his rights. Raymond acknowledged he understood his rights and would answer the questions.

  Wagner explained he was investigating an arson that occurred and told him the address. He gave the date and time of the arson and asked Raymond his whereabouts.

  Raymond said he was watching movies on his computer all night.

  “I suppose you have witnesses who can place you in your dorm room?” asked Wagner

  Raymond shrugged. “Probably not, I was in my room. You can check my browser history and see I was watching them. I’m the only one who can sign into my account.”

  “So, you don’t mind if we take a look at your computer then?” asked Wagner.

  “Not at all,” said Raymond. Tina the attorney pulled a laptop out of her briefcase and handed it over. Wagner got Raymond to sign a consent to search for the laptop. Raymond seemed pretty confident nothing out of the ordinary would be found.

  I spoke up, “How about your cell phone too?”

  Raymond immediately said, “Sure,” and pulled his phone out. Tina put a hand on his arm and quietly said, “We didn’t discuss this.”

  Her client brushed her off. “I ain’t got nothing to hide on that phone.”

  Wagner found another consent form and handed it over to Raymond.

  Tina told Raymond, “I think we need to discuss this before moving forward.”

  Raymond smirked and shook his head then signed the form. He was cocky about his electronics. I put the phone in airplane mode to keep any signal from wiping it, Wagner had done the same for the laptop. We were both scanning over the social media info when we realized everything related to that had been wiped.

  “So, did you have some questions for me?” asked Raymond. He seemed impatient and we scanned his phone and computer, though he was still confident.

  I looked around on his phone for some things Noel had mentioned. There was indeed an app with remote desktop in the name. I pulled up the settings and saw the last time it had been accessed was the night of the fire. I nudged Wagner who pulled out his own phone and took a picture of the screen.

  “I think we’re going to hang on to these for a while,” said Wagner.

  Tina shook her head. “Mr. Freeman has been forthcoming and is happy to answer any questions you have, but you haven’t actually asked him anything other than his whereabouts which he has clearly explained. If you don’t have anything further, then I think we’re done here.”

  Wagner pulled the photo of Raymond in his RAV4 taken by the gas station cameras.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  I leaned forward. “That’s the end of your scholarship, Raymond.”

  Tina snatched the picture and looked at it as did Raymond.

  I continued. “You got caught on camera driving away from the house right before it went up in flames. But that couldn’t happen because you were in your dorm room watching movies, right?”

  Raymond nodded. “Right.” He clenched his hands together and the cockiness had left him.

  “Except, you don’t have to be on the computer to access stuff on it, do you, Raymond?” I asked.

  “Don’t answer that,” said Tina.

  I went on. “You were on your phone, remotely accessing your laptop back in your dorm. That way you can say to us, look, we can just check the digital evidence and see in your history the IP address you were connected to and the activity that happened. But we can see from your phone that you were remotely connected. You were so worried about deleting messages on your Facebook account that you forgot about all the other stuff you had used.”

  “We’re done,” said Tina. She stood up to leave. Raymond took her cue and stood as well.

  “Nah, we’re going to go ahead and charge him,” said Wagner. He knocked on the door and two officers entered.

  Raymond was placed under arrest and taken away. “You said I didn’t have anything to worry about,” he called back to Tina.

  Tina grimaced as she put her things back in her bag. “Well gentlemen, that’s the last time you get an interview out of any of my clients.”

  Wagner rolled his eyes. I grinned and said, “When reality kicks in, tell him it might be in his best interest to cooperate because I want to know about a lot more than a house burning down.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Murder,” I said, simply.

  Tina stormed out.

  “I never did like her,” said Wagner.

  “Can’t think of an attorney I have liked at all,” I said.

  Wagner looked at me. “Ours or theirs?” he asked.

  I thought for a second. “Both.”

  He chuckled.

  Wagner was more tech savvy than me. He looked through the phone and found another application that kept track of where Raymond parked his car. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “What?”

  He leaned over and showed me the screen. “He was tracking himself and he probably didn’t even know it. He was at that house a couple of weeks before, probably the same night that your client’s sister died.”

  We went through and wrote down other addresses Raymond had visited. I recognized one of them as belonging to Becky Rand. Raymond had visited there a few times before Stephanie died and then never again. The only time he seemed to have left Bozeman since then was to go burn the house down.

  I thanked Wagner and told him to keep in touch if Tina called him. He had a feeling she would. I thought so too.

  Chapter 13

  I spent the rest of the week helping Eve get her apartment together. We found some living room furniture and a bedframe for a decent price. I decided to get her a good quality mattress because I wanted her to have something that was going to last a long time and also to keep my back from hurting every time I stayed at her place. So, it was a selfish thing to do on my part. That’s at least how I justify it in my mind since it was a lot of money to spend on a girl half my age who I’d known for about a month.

  After purchasing the mattress in Billings and setting up a delivery time, I headed over to the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office. Raymond’s lawyer, Tina, had set up a meeting for him to proffer. In layman’s terms, he wanted to give us information for which he would not be held accountable in exchange for possibly getting a decent plea agreement on the arson charge. Apparently, a night in jail had made him see the light.

  Wagner was waiting for me in the lobby of the office. We went in together; everyone knew who he was so that made it easier rather than me having to answer questions repeatedly. I had already spent more time with lawyers in the past month than I had in the past year. I was looking forward to being done with all this.

  The deputy county attorney was already in the conference room when Wagner led me in. His name was Mason Grimes. As far as attorneys went, he was a decent looking fellow about 30 years old, black hair that had not yet grayed and dark eyes. He looked like maybe he had some Greek or Italian in hi
m. Unlike many of the attorneys I was used to seeing, he wore khakis and a white button-down shirt instead of a suit.

  Tina and Raymond arrived. Someone had bonded him out not long after he was arrested. I think the bond was only around $25,000 which seemed low to me, but I’m not a judge, what do I know?

  Grimes gave Tina and Raymond some paperwork to fill out. Raymond signed it and Tina handed it back to Grimes. Wagner started the recorder. He began by giving some back story of the arson, stating the address, date and time it had occurred. Wagner asked Raymond if he was present when the house was set on fire.

  “Yes,” responded Raymond.

  Wagner asked for further detail.

  Tina nodded to Raymond.

  He sighed and said, “I kicked in the back door and threw some gasoline around the house.”

  “Which parts, specifically?” asked Wagner.

  “Through the hallways, a little in each room, mostly in one of the bedrooms.”

  We all jotted down notes. “Which bedroom?”

  Raymond sighed. “The one where Mariza, I mean Stephanie stayed.”

  “Why did you focus on that area?” asked Wagner.

  Raymond looked to Tina who nodded for him to continue. “I thought there might be something showing I had been there before.”

  “So, you wanted to get rid of any evidence of you previously having been there?” asked Wagner.

  Raymond nodded then said, “Yes,” when he was pressed to give a verbal answer.

  “Had you been at the house before?” asked Wagner.

  “Yeah,” said Raymond.

  “When?”

  “A couple of weeks before the fire.”

  Wagner asked, “Why were you there?”

  “This girl Becky, she wanted to go there and scare Stephanie because she had found out about what she did to me.”

  “And what did she do?” asked Wagner

  Raymond rubbed his face and scratched his head. “I was talking to her on Facebook and thought she was a girl named Mariza. She was fine and we had some good talks but would never meet up or video chat or anything. I guess she told Becky about it and some other people. I got a few messages warning me to stay away from her and that she was lying. Becky told me she worked with her and that the real person was named Stephanie and was a total cunt.” He glanced at Tina. “Sorry, that’s just how she said it. Anyway, she said Stephanie had been showing her the messages we exchanged and bragging about talking to this big black football player and was gonna go suck his big dick when she realized it was a fake profile and she was using someone else’s pictures. She said she thought what Stephanie was doing was a shitty thing and that we should do something about it, so she didn’t do it again.”