Green Tea Page 11

  We were quiet while Steph and Carmine filled us in on all the details.

  What it came down to was that Steph, Carmine, and more importantly, the police, believe the story. That story goes something like: Once upon a time, there lived a handsome cop, who was acting a little funny, answered a call for a silent alarm, he and his partner, Jerkface, went into a dark building, bang bang, boom, boom, handsome cop is shot, Jerkface is not, bad guys got away.

  Handsome officer works hard in rehab, tries to rejoin force, is turned down cold, because he is more than a little nuts, no details on just how crazy or what kind of crazy.

  Jerkface is a good guy, tries to help handsome officer adjust, and even introduces him to his lovely sister.

  Handsome cop goes off the deep end, starts killing girls in an effort to create crimes he can later solve, winning the favor of those that no longer value him, kind of a police munchausen by proxy nightmare.

  Handsome cop and Jerkface’s sister become friends, when it became more is unclear, but it’s clear it became more. She is aware that something is just not right. She confronts him, he doesn’t exactly admit to crimes, but she is certain he has done something truly terrible. She contacts Jerkface, who races over to handsome cop’s condo, they argue, handsome cop takes off, Jerkface in fast pursuit. Handsome cop runs off the road and tragically, or fortuitously, dies in wreck.

  Jerkface then tries to figure out what the handsome cop has done, in walks germaphobe Cara, and we know the rest.

  Teagan was as livid as I’ve ever seen her. “That’s not what happened!”

  Carmine looked offended, “And how do you know that?”

  “Because it doesn’t work. You guys have squished all the facts into forms that fit in the little boxes that you want them in, but you had to squish them, that isn’t how it’s supposed to work. If the facts fit, they fit, but these facts just don’t fit at all.”

  “What doesn’t fit?”

  “You are telling me that a cop, a cop that helped the little old ladies in his condo complex, was off killing girls and writing it down in a journal, so that he could impress the other cops enough to work his way back onto the force? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “People with severe emotional problems often don’t act rationally.”

  “I understand that, I’m not stupid, and I know I’m not a professional, but some common sense is needed here. Don’t you think this is all a little too convenient?”

  Teagan went back and forth with Carmine and Steph for about twenty-five minutes. We didn’t learn much more. From where we were sitting, there wasn’t a lot of evidence, and what evidence there was, was threaded together by a crazy cop and his sister.

  We didn’t get any details about forensics, or evidence. Basically, at some point, if any of this went to court, I’d be called to testify about how the journals and memory cards got to Steph, but other than that, I didn’t have any involvement.

  When Teagan pointed out that Jerkface had been stalking me, and had even broken into my apartment, Carmine, in a rather pejorative manner, considering we’re good guys, informed us that if we were right, and Jerkface was a bad guy, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hurt us now, it would blow his cover, and if he was a good guy he was simply trying to control information so that the insurance money would go to the boy’s club, to ensure that his sister would continue to have a job.

  I was so disgusted that I didn’t even bother to ask any questions.

  Carmine’s final comment as he and Steph walked out the door, “Cara, we got nothing but circumstantial evidence. We got no weapon. We got no other motive. We got no DNA on either guy on any of the girls. We got no fresh crime scene that we can go over again. We haven’t even found the dumpsite yet. But what we do have makes sense to the people who know what they’re lookin’ at. Sometimes that’s all you get.”

  “So, what happens now?”

  “We’ll let you know if we need you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Teagan stormed out without further comment.

  AJ shook hands with Steph and Carmine, and they walked out.

  Knowing my sister, the way I know my sister, I grabbed AJ’s hand and pulled him toward the door. Once that was locked, we headed toward the diner. Teagan would need sustenance.

  She was sitting at the same table where Steph and I made the transfer of the journals.

  The server looked at us, AJ nodded, and she walked away.

  “I swear to God Cara.”

  “I know.”

  “This is why I didn’t go to law school.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Maybe there isn’t anything you’re supposed to do. Maybe we’re just supposed to sit back and let nature take its course.”

  “Nature and justice often feed each other, and feed off of each other, but then people get in the way and screw it all up.”

  “You are going to drive yourself crazy. Aren’t you the one who always tells me that I can’t obsess over things that I have no control over?”

  “Cara, if they don’t keep looking, there isn’t anyone who is going to defend Louis, he’s dead. Evidently he doesn’t have any family, we didn’t see any pictures, we didn’t find any paperwork, and he left money to a new girlfriend’s job. Who does that?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “No we won’t. We don’t have the tools. We don’t have the information. We don’t have anyone listening to us. There is nothing we can do. You know what, I’m out of here. I’m going back to work.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m not hungry, I’m just pissed.”

  “Teagan…”

  She walked out the door without answering me.

  AJ wasn’t sure what to do or say, but gave it a shot, “Wow.”

  “I know. She’ll be okay.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “She is terrified.”

  “That the wrong person is going to jail?”

  “No, although that would bother her, what she is scared of is that they are going after the wrong person, and the right person is going to come after me.”

  “She isn’t the only one that thought about that.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “No, that’s just what my dad always says, and it always makes me feel better.”

  “You know what, I need to stop by Nana’s to check on her, then we’re going home.”

  “We are?”

  “I don’t want you there by yourself. You want to come to Nana’s with me?”

  “I really don’t have much of a choice, we drove in together.”

  “Good point.”

  We got to Nana’s. A tiny little condo in a nice area. AJ explained that when his grandfather died, his grandmother just couldn’t keep up with the maintenance of the house and decided to move into the condo. She hasn’t decided if she will continue to rent the condo, buy one in the complex, or find something else, but this suits her purposes for now.

  Nana was back to her old self, happy, healthy, and full of energy. She invited us to stay for dinner, AJ declined before I could say a word. I think that he wanted to get out of there before she figured out that he is actually worried.

  On the way home, we drove through Arby’s and got roast beef sandwiches, then drove through McDonald’s and got fries and a drink. We sat in WalMart’s parking lot and ate. It was really good.

  We got home. I made myself a cup of tea, while AJ took his shower. He was checking stuff on the computer when I came out from my shower.

  “Okay, you always say to start at the beginning, so that is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go over everything from the beginning to now, and maybe we can figure this out.”

  “Okay.”

  “When did all this start?”

  “Teagan says it started when I decided that I was g
oing to solve the Ivy-Rosenbloom mystery. The husband said he didn’t kill her and put up a reward.”

  “What ever happened with that?”

  “Last I heard, they arrested the husband and he got out on bail.”

  We checked online. The husband was still proclaiming his innocence, but the more we read, the more it looked like the guy killed his wife. They found out he was not alone when he took off for the night. An alibi is usually a good thing, unless she’s your mistress and she’s willing to tell the whole world that not only did you not stay at the weekend place the entire night, but ya promised her that soon you’d be together. She claims he said that his wife was going to go away soon. And if your mistress is your alibi, it’s probably not a good idea not to find a new sweet young thing before the trial.

  And although all the tests haven’t come back on Bernie yet, these things seem to happen so fast on TV but in real life it takes forever, the more I think about it, the more I can accept that Bernie was just old. She said all the time that if the Good Lord loved her, she would go quickly, painlessly, and with her lipstick on. The Good Lord loved her.

  “Cara, your friend the priest called you and asked you to clean out Louis’s condo, right?”

  “Yep, he said that Louis’s brother Steven contacted him and asked him to find someone. I’m pretty sure that it was Jerkface that actually contacted Billy. He all but admitted it. I never checked Steven out. That was stupid. I should have.”

  “Why would you? Besides, we aren’t going to do that. You can’t look back and second-guess everything, especially with information that you didn’t have at the time. Everyone does that now. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”

  We went over one detail at a time but it wasn’t until I got to the part where Jerkface followed me to the cemetery that we came up with anything new.

  When I asked Jerkface if he’d been driving his car earlier in the day, he said that he’d been driving his sister’s truck, that his sister could have been out at the cemetery, she’d just lost her fiancé. I thought he was lying to me to cover his own butt, but maybe he answered truthfully because I’d caught him off guard.

  Was her fiancé Louis? And if they were getting married, and he’d changed his insurance to pay for the group home, why wouldn’t he have changed it to have his future bride as beneficiary?

  AJ checked online. Kirsten Branden Gagnon.

  For the next couple of hours, AJ and I took turns doing online searches and taking notes. After we’d bookmarked about a hundred sites, I called Teagan.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. AJ and I went over everything. Forward, backward and sideways.” I went on to tell her what we’d found about Mrs. Ivy-Roosenbloom and our confidence in my theory that Bernie died more because God loves her, than some whacko didn’t.

  “Cara, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that just like Ivy-whoever, Bernie and Louis weren’t connected, and we made all the wrong assumptions about them, same thing here with Louis and that he really did kill all those girls and Jerkface is just being a good brother and his sister was just a girl in love with the wrong guy.”

  “Actually, what I’m going to say is that I’d like you to come over tonight and talk this out, and I was hoping you would invite Steph, since you know her better than I do. AJ and I have come up with some questions, and we think they deserve some answers.”

  “Can we do it over the phone?”

  “I take it that Jessie is still in town.”

  “Yep.”

  “You could bring him with you, and I already called the bakery, they are open for about another ten minutes, I could get you some Sin.”

  “You talked me into it.”

  I ran down to the bakery. Made it just as they were locking up. Someone up there likes me. Truth is they started a small catering business on the side, thanks to the economy, so they are open some evenings, and I just happened to call them on the right one.

  I was a bit miffed that AJ insisted on going with me.

  I was more grateful that he cares enough to be a pain in the butt.

  Jessie and Teagan were driving up as we got back. Both in black sweats. Obviously they were in for the evening.

  Teagan told us that Steph would be arriving in a few minutes, that she was coming over in her capacity as a friend, not a lawyer, and that we should feel free to start without her.

  We talked about Jessie’s relocation possibilities while we waited for the kettle to boil. Once the tea was made and the Sin was served, AJ and I started to explain what we’d accomplished in the last few hours.

  Steph arrived before we completed the first thought.

  “AJ and I have spent the day going over everything we could think of regarding Louis, Jerkface and his sister. We think that some questions need to be answered and if we can get satisfactory answers to those questions, we will feel comfortable enough to leave the whole thing alone.”

  “And what happens if you don’t like the answers?”

  “We don’t have to like the answers or agree with them, they just have to make sense. The answers we got at the studio earlier today had holes in them big enough to drive a truck through. We’re just looking for something that’s reasonable and makes some kind of sense.”

  “And if we can’t come up with answers that make sense to you?”

  “Investigative reporting is a wonderful thing, I guess someone in the media can help us.”

  Steph was ready to take notes, “Let’s hear the questions.”

  “First, if Louis was writing down all the facts of the cases in the journals, so that he could turn around and solve the crimes and get back on the force, why are there girls in the journals that the police haven’t identified? If the cops didn’t even know about the murders, how could he solve them to win favor? How would he explain where he got the first lead?”

  Steph didn’t look too concerned about our brilliant insight.

  “Second, I know this is pretty fundamental, but has anyone even bothered to authenticate the handwriting in the journals. I went through a lot of Louis’s stuff, and all of it was printed, it wasn’t in cursive. The journals were written in a beautiful cursive. His printing is very precise, but not pretty in any way. Has anyone checked that?”

  Steph continued to take notes.

  “Third, Jerkface told me his sister is engaged to be married. She already has a different last name than he does, has she been married before? Has anyone talked to her ex-husband? Was she engaged to Louis or someone else? Has anyone talked to the person she was going to marry, if that person isn’t Louis?”

  Steph brightened, “We did ask about her name. She said that her mom divorced her dad and she took her step-dad’s last name. Officer Branden continued to live with his father after the divorce. Even though they lived in two different households, they remained very close.”

  “So the question remains, was she engaged and if she was, or is, who is she engaged to?”

  Steph jotted another note, “Got it.”

  “Next question: When Jerkface showed up at Louis’s condo and Teagan and I kicked his butt, he said that he’d had a forensics guy go over everything in the locked room, looking back, I don’t really think that happened, but has it been done since then? Did anyone check for prints on the shade?”

  Steph leaned forward, “Carmine oversaw all that. He said they found prints. They compared them to those in the system. They have your prints and Cara’s prints, from a previous case.”

  The look on Jessie’s face was priceless; the look on AJ’s was even better.

  Teagan grabbed Jessie’s knee and said, “The other case is Bernie’s house, they checked the house and garage, and they needed to disqualify our prints, or whatever that’s called.”

  Steph continued, “They have AJ’s prints on record for a program that includes photography within the school system, and of course we have Jessie’s. Teagan’s and Cara’s prints were pretty much on everything in the condo. We did find prints for AJ and
Jessie, in much smaller numbers. Louis’s prints were in all the normal places, including the shade, no other prints of merit.”

  Teagan perked up, “What about Eddie?”

  Steph looked up from her notes, “Who’s Eddie?”

  “The locksmith I had open the door. I’ve had him do other work for me since, he always wears gloves, I saw him stuffing them in his toolbox the last time he did work for me and I asked about it, his wife likes clean fingernails. It makes sense you wouldn’t find his prints anywhere.”