Jewel of a Murderer

by M. Glenn Graves

  I provided her the details of my interview with Drew Sizemore. His revelations were important to the murder investigation.

  I remember vividly relating the information I had learned from Drew to McGrady after the interview. We were nearly finished with our door-to-door canvassing of Thistle Street.

  “That squeamish little fairy queen,” he said to me. “Scared of his shadow.”

  “He has good reason to be afraid. The killer has seen him and could easily come after him.”

  “So?” McGrady said and grinned at me.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I said. “What happened to that protect and serve oath you swore to, McGrady? His lifestyle is none of our concern. Our job is simply to protect and to serve all the people.”

  “We need to find you a pulpit. Sizemore should’ve come forward when the murders happened.”

  “If you had done your job, you would have found him.”

  “If I had found him, I’da beaten the truth out of him.”

  “Nothing like a cop committing a hate crime, right McGrady?”

  “I don’t hate him. I just find him repulsive and disgusting.”

  “And he’s done absolutely nothing to you,” I said.

  “Well, you can have all of the gays you want, lady. I’ve got a murderer to find.”

  “You need to set up some police protection for Drew,” I said.

  “Protection? Are you joking?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you can dream on, lady. There ain’t gonna be no police protection for Queen Drew.”

  McGrady walked to the next house on his end of Thistle Street. I called Wineski and told him the development. I left out McGrady’s attitude towards gays. Wineski said he would take care of securing an officer to watch Drew’s place. By the time I had finished the last two houses, McGrady joined me. He had learned nothing new, or at least reported nothing to me. I had nothing else to give him. I was satisfied at the moment that the information from Drew Sizemore was substantive enough to piece some things together. Plus, I knew that there would have to be more digging around.

  I drove McGrady back to the station to get his car. He took off without saying a word. I was about to leave when Wineski cornered me.

  “You went over McGrady’s head with that Sizemore thing,” he said.

  “The police protection?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Next time go through him.”

  “I went through him this time. He refused to do it.”

  “Refused? Why?”

  “He doesn’t like gays.”

  “He refused to get an officer to watch Sizemore because he was gay. Are you kidding me?”

  “You surprised that McGrady’s a jerk? Come on, Captain. You’ve always known where the man stands.”

  “Well, McGrady does act like a jerk, but…let’s just say that there’s been a lot of suspicion around the force that he is gay himself.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do say. Reminds me of that old pot and kettle adage.”

  “Yeah, it do sound that way, Captain…if the suspicions are true.”

  Chapter 9

  “Wait just a minute, Miss Clancy Evans, super-sleuth. You give me a hard time for editing out the dog and yet you have minced a great deal of what happened on that case when you dictated your thin facts years ago. So, why don’t I have some of this data in my RAM?” Rogers interrupted.

  “I chose not to include it.”

  “Is that the way you conduct your investigative practice?”

  “You got it, Babe. Less is more.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense for storing data.”

  “Some info is not so good to hold onto. Some occurrences and private conversations do not need to see the light of day.”

  “You understand that if you do this enough, you will greatly restrict my keen abilities to process and develop and opine.”

  “Restricting the latter is one of my goals in life.”

  “My conclusion is that you err in this tactic, but since I cannot control the flow of data from you and your experiences, I will only bow to your dubious wisdom in this case, with prejudice,” she said.

  “Wow. Score one for the home team.”

  “The bowing is a metaphor. Now that being said, continue your story about Sam and McGrady and the jogging murders, and try your best not to mince the details. The devil lurks there, you know.”

  I continued the telling of what I recalled.

  Wineski sent a squad car with two uniforms to protect Drew Sizemore from any possible reprisal from the killer. If Sizemore was telling me the truth about the whole incident, then it was a good bet that the killer saw Sizemore and would likely try to keep him quiet. I had to assume that the killer was smart enough to figure out eventually where Sizemore lived.

  “You still digging around into the lives of those two jogging victims?” I said to Rogers.

  “Aside from learning that they both did their banking at the People’s American branch just off of Tidewater, and both accomplished their dry cleaning needs at the same small mom and pop’s unit close to the bank’s branch, I found only one other connection.”

  I waited for her to continue. I was met with a longer pause than I deemed necessary.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well what?”

  “I’m waiting for the other shoe to fall. Why aren’t you telling me what else you discovered?”

  “I wanted your attention. I wanted to be sure you were listening.”

  “Tell me what you have.”

  “That’s better. I like to be fully engaged with a listener whenever I dispense my clever tracking. Amidst all of the video/surveillance film which I scoured through I came across one rather significant piece of footage. Would you like to view it?”

  “Does a dog like bones?”

  Sam raised his head from his nap and watched me carefully as I moved from the couch to the monitor to see what Rogers had come across.

  “Easy, boy. I’ll take care of you shortly.”

  “Here are two photos of our victims,” Rogers said as she immediately pulled up a photo of a young man and a young woman and placed them side by side on the monitor. The photos were from their Virginia driver’s licenses.

  “You got these legally, I hope,” I said.

  “Don’t ask. Just keep watching my screen. I came across this video as well.”

  The grainy film was from a camera in a small restaurant. It appeared that the camera was mounted just above the entrance door and was aimed in such a way as to provide a view of the entire tiny establishment. It appeared to be longer than it was wide. A female entered and walked to the back of the place, sat down at a table for two, and sipped on some liquid without looking at a menu. I reasoned that she was waiting on someone.

  “That’s the female jogger, Candace Glover,” Rogers said as if to clarify the obvious.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, here comes the male jogger, Jeffrey Goodall,” she said as I watched the screen.

  The man in the video appeared to be doing some kind of cloak and dagger routine as he entered. He did a visual scan of the eating place, turned once, then twice to look behind him at the entrance, then proceeded to move to the back of the place and sit down at the table opposite the female.

  “That was strange,” I said to Rogers.

  “Noted. I thought it a bit unusual myself. A daytime clandestine routine, or something like that.”

  “Well put. Wearing sunglasses and a ball cap to boot. It appears that he is trying to remain more hidden than the girl.”

  “I wondered about that myself,” Rogers said.

  I watched the two talk. Body language can often be informative. She leaned towards the man sitting across from her. Both of her hands were on the table, both were extended beyond the midway point, and both were lying flat on the table, palms down. She appeared to be reaching for him. He was sitting upright, rigid and formal. There appeared to be a more than usual
gap between his position in his chair and the table. He was not reaching towards her.

  “They’re discussing something serious,” Rogers said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been doing some research on human beings and their non-verbal communications. Their body language is quite telling. She is earnest and he is distant. She is longing and he is remote.”

  “I’m impressed with your ever-increasing skills,” I said.

  “Wow, a compliment from the boss-lady.”

  “Don’t let it go to your motherboard.”

  “Crude, but I comprehend. Now, watch this,” she said.

  After a few minutes had passed, the seemingly distant young man stood and walked over to the young woman. She stood and they embraced. It was quick and I judged it to be passionate. There was no distance between them as long as they held on to each other. He then kissed her on the forehead, or so the grainy reproduction of the surveillance footage showed.

  “And you are positive that these two individuals are the two joggers who were killed?” I said since the video was so grainy.

  “As sure as I am that you and the dog are here in this apartment with me. What do you think? You watched the video.”

  “It doesn’t jibe with Drew’s story,” I said.

  “That he and Jeffrey Goodall were…what?”

  “He used the word close, but he did suggest that since both of them were gay, they had some type of relationship. He also said that he doubted that his friend, Jeff, had any kind of relationship with the woman.”

  “The video suggests something otherwise,” Rogers said.

  “Yeah, I got that, too. Just not sure what it suggests.”

  “Me either, but I will say this. That kiss on the forehead was anything but passion displayed.”

  “Crossed my mind as well,” I said.

  “I have some further pieces of the puzzle for your pleasure,” Rogers said.

  “Do tell.”

  “Those sparkly things, baubles and beads, if you please, can be traced to a jogging shoe made by the Centelle Corporation. The name of the shoe is Blade Runner. Fancy, fancy, fancy. The shoe is covered with a variety of multi-colored imitation stones made of hard plastic. There are blues, reds, oranges, and crystal ones. The two crystal ones that Sam discovered are a dead-on match to the Centelle creations. You are looking for a killer who wears Blade Runners.”

  “And you received the information from a phone call from the tech guys at the police station?”

  “No,” she said abruptly. “Absolutely not!”

  “So, they sent it to me via a fax.”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really? Okay, then you need to fess up,” I said.

  “Fess up?”

  “Con-fess. How did you gain this knowledge concerning the sparkling fake gems?”

  “I copied a communiqué between the tech lab and Wineski’s computer.”

  “And you copied this communiqué between those two police entities because…”

  “I was diligent,” she said. I detected that somewhere lurking inside her CPU there was someone smiling with great satisfaction at this disclosure. Intuition can sometimes play tricks on me.

  “Diligent in snooping around and stealing from the police computer system,” I said.

  “I knew you would want to know.”

  “And if you got caught?”

  “I did not get caught.”

  “But if you did,” I elaborated with emphasis this time.

  “I will not get caught.”

  “Sure of ourselves, are we?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Because…?”

  “Because they simply do not have the type of system that can discern my incredible stealth. They do not have sufficient fire walls nor are they capable of discerning hackers like me, and I use that term hackers loosely. I do not consider my ineffable abilities to be anything like a hacker. I simply have the wherewithal to go anywhere I jolly well please without leaving footprints.”

  “Jolly well please, huh? Sometimes you actually scare me,” I said.

  “I serve at the pleasure of Clancy Evans.”

  “Okay, Stealthy, a word to the wise here. Be ye careful. Try not to have any electronic footprints which lead directly to my door.”

  “Always, my love. Always. Never fear that. I am in complete control.”

  Chapter 10

  I needed to talk further with Drew in light of the video that Rogers had brought to my attention. I didn’t take time to contact McGrady. His disdain for Drew Sizemore was more than sufficient for me to be cautious around him. Avoidance was always an option I felt.

  Sam and I rode over to Thistle Street to have a chat with Sizemore.

  As I approached Drew’s house, I could not see any police presence near the place. I drove the entire length of Thistle Street without spotting any patrol car. I even looked for some plain-clothes guys who might be lurking. Wineski would not be above utilizing anyone in his command to protect a witness in a murder case.

  I found no one watching Drew’s house. I had a bad feeling.

  “Don’t like the looks of this,” I said to Sam as we parked directly in front of Drew’s. “You come with me. It’s time you met Drew.”

  As I approached the front door, I found it partially opened. Closed, yet slightly ajar. My bad feeling intensified.

  “Stay,” I whispered to Sam and he sat down. His ears were erect and alert for any sounds.

  I drew my 9mm and carefully pushed the front door to a fully opened position. I took a few steps inside and paused to listen. I waited. Silence.

  I chose not to call out for Drew. The half-closed door was enough for me to be more than a little cautious. I moved quietly along the short hallway towards his dining/living room area where he and I had sat a few days ago. I peered around the corner and discovered that his neatly kept living quarters were now completely disheveled. Messy would be a mild word to describe the scene. Think chaos.

  Drew’s body was on the floor in front of the sofa.

  I did a careful search of the house just to make sure I had not interrupted whoever had come to do the deed. No one was there except for the lifeless body of Drew Sizemore.

  I felt a pain. I knew the fear of being stalked. I also knew what it was like to have someone coming after me intent on killing me. The police protection was to have prevented this. So much for that.

  Someone had pulled the protection, or the cops never showed up. Besides being sad at finding this young man dead on the floor of his own home, I was angry. Without benefit of proof, I formed a conclusion. I knew who the culprit truly was.

  I called Wineski and the Medical Examiner. While I waited for them to arrive, Sam and I walked carefully around the house. I kept him away from the body but not because Sam wanted to have contact with the corpse. Wineski can be a tad peculiar when it comes to crime scenes. Our walking around the house was enough to raise his ire, but I had to do some sniffing. Sam had to do some sniffing as well.

  Every room in the home was tossed. It took no real deduction for me to conclude that whoever had killed Drew Sizemore was searching for something. Hard to say if they found it. Sam and I were careful not to disturb the place any more than it was already disturbed. No one would have known except for Sam and me.

  I was in one of the two bedrooms. I guessed it to be the extra bedroom. It had no personal touches that I could discern. No wall hangings. No photographs. Stark. Bare essentials – bed, nightstand, lamp, and dresser.

  Sam barked a couple of short yelps. I guessed it to be a call for me to come. He had found something or someone. I was learning.

  He was in the bathroom. I guessed that he had been sniffing around the sink. Sam sniffs a lot. When I entered, he was sitting in front of the sink and staring at the floor. Lying in front of the vanity was a shiny stone similar to the ones that Sam had discovered behind the pine trees at the park. I tore off a segment of the toilet paper roll cl
ose to me and picked up the stone. My untrained eyes told me that this was probably a fake like the others. Similar size and design.

  I love clues. I just don’t always know what the clues actually mean, if anything.

  I heard Wineski’s voice calling me. I put the sparkly stone back in the spot where Sam had found it. Or close to the spot.

  “Stay here and let no one take that until I say so,” I said.

  He remained. I moved towards the dining/living room to greet Wineski and his entourage of police folk. He didn’t seem too happy to see me.

  “What in God’s good name happened here?” Wineski said.

  “Something rotten in the state of Virginia,” I said.

  “Why are you here alone?”

  “I’m not alone. Sam’s in the bathroom.”

  “Relieving himself?”

  “Guarding evidence,” I said.

  “Oh. So I ask you again, why are you here alone without human companionship?”

  “Sam and I came to talk with Sizemore. Found him like this.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase yet another time. Where are the two uniformed policemen who were guarding this witness?”

  “Somebody removed them.”

  Wineski frowned at me. His temperature was rising. It was the not-so-radiant glow of his red face that was the giveaway.

  “And who would do that?”

  “Someone who figured that he had the authority to do that…or the hatred.”

  “This is a damn world we live in, Clancy Evans,” Wineski said.

  “Ain’t it the truth.”

  “Show me the evidence,” he said and then turned to the tech people. “Do your thing, ladies and gentleman. I want to know everything there is to know about this crime scene.”

  Wineski and I stood in the small doorway of Drew Sizemore’s bathroom. There was no indication to me that Sam had moved. He looked at us as if we were intruders. Duty first.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Obeying.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Why is he sitting there?”

  “Protecting the evidence he found.”