Deadly Connections

by Renee Pawlish

  “I’ve got ’em!” I jumped as Spats came walking into the room. “I’ve got Audra and Gary Pickett’s phone records for the last two months, plus the kid’s,” he said. “If we need to go back farther than that, we can.”

  “What about the pings for the phone locations?”

  “Verizon’s working on it. They said that’ll take a while longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  He gave me an impatient look. “I’ll keep on them.” He sat down at his desk across from me and we faced each other. I waited expectantly.

  “Hang on,” he said. “They’ve made a lot of calls.” He handed me a set of pages. “That’s all of Audra’s records.”

  I took the papers from him. “What about the kid’s phone?”

  He shuffled pages. “Not a lot of calls, mostly to one or the other parent. He got a call from Gary Saturday afternoon.”

  “Telling Logan he was on his way,” I said.

  “I don’t see any suspicious calls from the kid’s phone.”

  I nodded and started looking through the records he’d given me. Each page had the phone number, the address, and the name of the person that Audra called or had received a call from. As I scanned through them, I recognized some of the names. Her ex, Gary. Latoya Anderson. Based on the addresses in close proximity to Audra, it showed she had placed calls to some other neighbors too. She’d called people in Maryland. I assumed these were relatives, maybe her parents, but I’d have Spats or Ernie track that down. She also called Heather Neville, the close Facebook friend. I made a note of that number. On the day of Logan’s disappearance, I noticed a call from Gary to Audra. He’d told me that he’d called Audra and left a message for her; the records confirmed that. Then Audra made a call to Latoya, and a couple of other calls to numbers I didn’t recognize. I circled those.

  “We’ll need to follow up on these calls,” I said to Spats. “Some of these I don’t know.” I craned my neck to see the papers lying on his desk. “I think Audra called her parents to tell them about Logan. What about his parents?”

  “Where’s Gary from?”

  “California.”

  “Hold on, let me look at yesterday. Ah, here’s a call to a California number. Sacramento.”

  “Follow up with the grandparents, will you? Let’s see what they have to say. And find out if they think either Audra or Gary has a drinking problem. And Gary has a girlfriend, Kristi Arnott. Talk to her.” He reached for a pen and jotted on a notepad. “Your records should show Gary calling Audra last Saturday, a little before six.”

  He ran his pen down the page. “Yeah, for thirty seconds.”

  “That’s right. Their stories match so far. Gary said Audra didn’t answer, and he left a message.”

  I looked at my records again. Audra had also made a longer call around that time. That, I assumed, was the business call she had taken, the one that had kept her busy so that she wasn’t paying attention to Logan. I starred that number. “Spats, I’m starring another call for you to follow up on. This should be a real estate client Audra talked to.”

  He noted that as well. “Sure thing.”

  I picked up my phone and dialed the number for Heather Neville. It went to voice mail, so I left a message identifying myself and asking her to call me back, then gave her my cell phone number. I cradled the receiver and stared at the papers on my desk.

  “Hey,” Spats interrupted my thoughts. “I’m looking back to the beginning of Gary’s phone calls. He made several calls to the Gold Creek Gun Range. Did Gary Pickett mention owning guns?”

  I rested my elbows on the desk and pictured Gary’s house. “I didn’t see any, just a knife collection.”

  “Knives? Like one that could slice a kid’s wrist?”

  “A good thought, right?”

  He tapped the pages. “I’ll look into this gun shop. Might be something there.”

  “Hey,” I tried fruitlessly to see the pages he had. “What calls did Gary make last Saturday?”

  “Let’s see. He called Kristi Arnott and another number.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “He said he only called Kristi.”

  “Well, well, well. We’ll need to follow up with Gary on that.”

  “That’s right.” I didn’t disguise my anger. “I don’t like being lied to.” My desk phone rang, interrupting my ire. “Spillman.”

  “It’s Ed Oakley. You’ve got the Pickett case, right? The kid who was found in the dumpster this morning?”

  I sat a little straighter. “Yes. What’s up?”

  Oakley is another detective in the department He’s from Boston, and even though he’s lived in Colorado since he was a teenager, he still sounds a little Boston, his voice nasally, the trace of the accent, the occasional dropping of his r’s. “I got a dead body, male, in a house here just down the block from where that kid was discovered. Something makes me think these could be connected.”

  “I’d bet money on that,” I said. “What happened?”

  “Gunshot wound in the side of the temple,” he said. “On the face of it, it looks like a suicide. But …” He didn’t finish the thought.

  “I want to take a look.”

  He laughed grimly. “That’s why I called you. Figured you’d want to see this.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  He gave me the address and I scribbled it down. I thanked him and hung up. I looked at Spats, who raised an eyebrow. “What?” I told him about the body. “That’s an interesting turn.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. Keep looking at those phone records, okay? Oh, can you return Audra Pickett’s laptop to her?” I handed it to him. “Let me know how it goes, how she seems. I’m going to take a look at this new body. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “You got it, Spillman.”

  “And I’ll call Ernie. He’s talking to Latoya and some of Audra’s neighbors now. He’ll want to know about the neighbor’s death.”

  “Right.”

  I barely heard that as I was already out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  I flashed my badge at the officer standing on the front porch of an older two-story house not far from Audra Pickett’s home. He logged me in with calculated boredom. I put on a pair of booties and stepped into the living room. I could smell death before I’d even taken a few steps, a faint metallic odor combined with the staleness of the house. The living room was small, with a couch and loveseat, and a TV against the wall. ESPN was on, discussing the beginning of the baseball season. Several framed photos hung on the other walls: nature scenes, the mountains, a lake. A tripod stood near the front window. I walked over and parted the curtains. Several cars were parked in front of the house. I shifted to the left, and I could see Latoya Anderson’s house at the corner of the next block. I watched for a moment, then let the curtains fall back into place.

  I heard voices down a hallway and also coming from upstairs. I chose the main level and followed the sound down a short hallway with more framed photos. On the right, a man with dark hair and an equally dark suit filled a doorway, his back to me. He turned as I approached.

  “Spillman, how’re you doing?”

  Detective Ed Oakley and I had known each other for a few years. Oakley had recently been promoted to the homicide division, and he took many of the cases that I couldn’t. I’d heard he was smart, and he took his job seriously, but beyond that I didn’t know a lot about him.

  “It ain’t pretty,” he said wryly. He stepped back and put a hand in his pocket. He withdrew a pair of latex gloves, which he handed to me. “You want to take a look?” He waved into the room.

  I donned the gloves and stepped past him into the room. The smell of death was stronger. The room was sparse, a bed centered against one wall, nightstands on either side, a dresser in the corner, and a little table against the wall with a TV on it. Lying face-up on the bed was a blond-haired man in jeans, no shirt, bare feet. His lifeless blue eyes stared at the ceiling. Blood spatter was to his left, a Sig Sauer P22
0 still clutched in his right hand. I moved closer for a better look. There was a hole in his right temple, a larger one in his left. The gun had done its work.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  He pulled a small notepad from his coat pocket. “Ivan Eklund. He’s thirty-five, never married, no children. He doesn’t have a criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. He was born in Virginia, and has lived in the Denver area for several years. Bought this house three years ago. He’s a photographer.”

  “Who discovered him?”

  “He’s got a girlfriend. Rachel Connelly. She stopped by on her lunch break to see Eklund. She has a key and let herself in.” He contemplated the body. “What a thing to discover. Anyway, she called 911 and waited on the porch. I talked to her, and she told me some things about him, but then I let her go home. She was a mess, as you can imagine.”

  I took that in as I studied the scene. “So, Eklund was sitting up, and then he blew his brains out,” I said. “Is that your initial take?”

  Oakley stepped into the room. “On the surface, that’s what it looks like. He fell backward, and you can see some of the blood on the comforter behind him.” He tilted his head. “Good gun, did the job well.”

  I looked where he indicated and saw exactly what he meant. A small amount of blood had spattered on the bed near Eklund’s head. As Oakley had said, at first glance, it was a suicide. A faint smell mingled with the death smells, some kind of cologne. I glanced around the room. The bed was neat, as was the room. A digital alarm clock and a small lamp sat on one of the nightstands, nothing else. The dresser had nothing on it. A large framed picture of a mountain lake hung above the bed.

  “Did Eklund take that?” I asked.

  Oakley nodded. “He signed it.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I guess.”

  My gaze rested on the body again. It lay on a tan comforter, an expression on his face I couldn’t quite read. A trace of fear, but something else. Anger?

  I put my hands on my hips. “Anything to make you believe it wasn’t a suicide?”

  He shrugged. “Too early to tell. I’m not going to assume anything.”

  I nodded agreement, then pointed at Eklund’s hands. “You swab them for gunshot residue?”

  “Of course. I’ll let you know what we find out.”

  “You wonder the girlfriend shot him?”

  He shook his head. “And then called the police? Possible, but I doubt it. She’d be a hell of an actor to fake the emotion I saw.”

  The room was hot, the windows closed, the air stifling. If the house had an air conditioner, it wasn’t on. I moved closer to the body, bent down, ignoring the smells coming from it. I studied Eklund’s temple. “Trace gun powder there?”

  “Yeah,” Oakley agreed.

  Eklund looked younger than his age, with a lean build and a flat stomach. Good looking. A tiny drop of blood was on his jeans. I didn’t see any other wounds on his body, no signs of possible drug use. He appeared healthy.

  “This whole thing stinks.” I stood straight. “What’s a man doing committing suicide within walking distance of a dumpster where that little boy’s body was found? Unless this guy’s guilty of something?”

  Oakley nodded. “That’s what I’m wondering, too.”

  “Is that Eklund’s gun?”

  “We’re checking on it.”

  “Have you found anything that would lead you to believe this guy, Eklund, had something to do with Logan Pickett’s death?”

  He gnawed his lip. “Not so far.”

  “You’re searching the house?”

  He nodded again. “Yeah, CSI has a guy upstairs and another one in the basement.”

  “What do you know about Eklund?”

  He glanced at the notepad again. “What we’ve gathered so far is that the girlfriend, Rachel, that I mentioned–there’s some pictures of him and her on the refrigerator–says he stayed to himself. She says Eklund was friendly, but a bit of an introvert, and he doesn’t have a lot of contact with the neighbors. He works as a photographer, both with a small company in Wheat Ridge that contracts with a lot of the schools in the metro area. His boss says Eklund was a good employee. No red flags about him. We got in touch with a sister who lives on the East Coast. She was shocked, says Eklund had been just fine, not sad or depressed. Nobody else says he was depressed, either. We’re digging into his past as fast as we can, and like I said, I’ll give you what we find, if you want it. There are pictures of him and the girlfriend on the fridge. He was kissing her. Quite romantic.”

  “Suicide note?”

  He shook his head. “Not so far.”

  “I’m going to look around the house,” I said.

  “Help yourself.”

  I stepped by Oakley and went out the door, down the hall, and into the kitchen. There wasn’t anything special about it, old cabinets that had been painted white, a little table in the corner. I looked in some of the cupboards and in the refrigerator. Nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t find any booze, nothing that would indicate he might be a heavy drinker.

  As Oakley had said, a few pictures were stuck to the refrigerator door with magnets. They showed Eklund with a woman with shoulder-length blond hair. In one, they were on a boat, both tan, sunglasses, big smiles. In another, they were on a hiking trail. The third had them sitting on a couch, kissing passionately, as Oakley had said. I had no way of knowing how old the pictures were. Eklund appeared happy.

  I turned from the refrigerator and moved to the sink. Out a window was a small backyard, and beyond that, an alley. I stepped outside and into the yard. It was warm, and birds chirped from a huge tree that shaded the yard. They had no concern for the death inside the house.

  I walked through the grass to a gate at the far end of the yard. I peeked over the fence and down the alley to the dumpster where Logan Pickett’s body had been found. The CSI team was still at work. This was their one chance at evidence, and they’d scour the alley for clues. I hoped they would have a report for me soon.

  After I watched them for another minute, I judged the distance from the dumpster. Not very far from Eklund’s house. I listened, heard traffic. I tried the gate handle. It stuck, and took me a moment to open. The hinges creaked as I swung the gate inward. Once in the alley, I looked around. Nothing struck me as noteworthy, so I walked back to Eklund’s garage. I peeked in a window and saw a light blue Honda Pilot, a lawn mower and other gardening equipment. I craned my neck to see more, then hurried back inside the house. A door off the kitchen led to the basement, and I went downstairs. Another detective was looking around a large room.

  “Find anything interesting?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The only thing out of the ordinary is he’s got a room set up for photography. A black sheet for a backdrop, chairs for someone to sit on, tripods.”

  “Show me.”

  He led me down a hall to a small room and opened a door. It was as he described, dark, with a high window in the corner covered with black paper. Shelving on one wall held a variety of cameras and equipment. I moved around the room, looking for some sign that Logan Pickett might’ve been in here. Nothing.

  “No closet?” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  I pointed past him. “Any signs Eklund might have kept that kid down here?”

  “The boy found in the alley this morning?” He shook his head. “At first glance, not that I can tell. Doesn’t mean he didn’t.”

  I gazed around the main room, which had little in it except a threadbare couch and a pool table, then left the detective there and went upstairs to the second floor. There was another spare bedroom, empty, and a detective in another room that had been set up as an office. He was sitting at a desk with an open laptop.

  “That’s Eklund’s?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. It’s password protected, so I can’t get into it.”

  “Get a warrant so a tech can get into it.”

  “I’m
already on it.” He went back to searching around the desk.

  More camera equipment sat on a shelf in the corner, along with photography books. “You’ll be looking at what Eklund has on the cameras as well?”

  He gave me a funny look. “Of course. Does this pertain to you?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “We’re on it, okay?”

  I thanked him, then checked a small bathroom. Eklund was tidy, nothing out of place, a hand towel neatly hung on a rod, no water residue around the sink. I peeked back into the office. The detective ignored me, and I went back downstairs. Oakley was still in the bedroom.

  “You’ll tell me everything you find on the laptop and his cameras,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  Oakley nodded. “Sure thing. You really think this has something to do with the kid?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not paid to believe in coincidences.”

  He laughed at that. “Yeah, me either. You just got that case this morning, right?”

  “Yes.” I blew out a long breath and glanced at my watch. “Almost lunch, although I doubt I’ll have time to get anything.”

  “You have any other leads?”

  I thought for a second. “There’s something with the dad. Not sure what yet, but I’ll find it.” I gestured at Eklund’s room. “But this …” I didn’t finish.

  He gave me an appraising look. “Good luck.”

  “You tell me what you find soon as you can,” I repeated. “And get a rush on Eklund’s laptop analysis, will you? I want to know what’s on it.”

  “I will,” he said, a little irritated that I was pushing him.

  “What’s the girlfriend’s name? Rachel?”

  “Connelly. You want to talk to her?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave me her contact information. I thanked him and headed back through the living room. ESPN was still talking baseball. I stepped outside and took off the booties and gloves. The officer gave me a curt nod, and I waved as I walked down the sidewalk.