Late Night Phone Calls

I felt for him and thought about letting him stay at my place but I wasn't about to put Helen in danger for Frank or anyone. He would have to spend the night at the station house until we could make better arrangements.

Later the next morning, Frank received the call from Baker's Realty on his new phone. His company was selected for the construction job, but not the maintenance contract. The nervous guy I seen in the lobby was the third bidder and his company received the maintenance contract. He was happy with that.

He mentioned the president picked him not only because of his reputation but also because his closest competitor, Hugh's Consolidated Builder's, was putting unwanted pressure in his selection process, which he resented. Those actions became another factor in his decision making.

I knew the president of Baker's was an upstanding guy. He also liked giving the little guy a chance to prove himself with the maintenance contract.

Forensics caught a break that linked the two shootings. They found a finger print on the door handles of both Frank's house and his motel room. The print belonged to a career criminal with a bad reputation. Getting him off the street would be a joy.

While Frank began the process of setting up for the build, he received a few threatening anonymous calls and emails. While it lead us in a different direction, it also gave us motive. This time the threats were against his company. The possibility of equipment failures, accidents, and fires were only a few.

With Frank taken care of for the moment I decided to start following up on the movements of Beverly. According to Frank, my wife and a few others, it was obvious she lacked discretion when it came to her affairs. Her credit card purchases for the last two months showed a variety of visits to mens clothing stores, restaurants and a five star hotel downtown. Two or three times a week on average she was out enjoying the high life with boy toy.

In total, she ran up well over six thousand dollars in credit card bills directly linked to her and her lover in two months. Since the card was in Beverly's name only, Frank won't be on the hook for them. If he was, it wouldn't surprise me if he dug her up and slapped the shit out of her. Instead he gets to collect the life insurance he had on her. That's another motive I had to consider.

The lover's motel would be my first stop. I was hoping security cameras caught a good head shot of they guy. Our cyber guys could use facial recognition against the FBI database to help us find the identify of Beverly's headless lover.

I was right about the hotel. They used high definition video cameras at the front desk and caught the happy couple on a few occasions. It only took the cyber unit 4 hours to get an 85% probable match.

The feds started photographing everyone who crossed the border years ago. It seems a certain man with blonde hair, standing six foot four inches tall crossed the border from Canada all of four months ago. As usual the feds kept poor records but after a few phone calls I was able to find out that he came over on an H1B Visa as a Project Manager. No wonder our guys couldn't find his finger prints, he was Canadian and wouldn't be part of our regular database searches. But his employer here stateside was responsible for finger printing, criminal background and everything else. Of course that goes to the immigration people at ICE who makes it part of the database. At the time of my inquiry, ICE was four months behind on scanning the data into their system.

At least the Border Patrol tagged this guy crossing the border and called ICE, who called the State Department, who emailed the Border Patrol to confirm his Visa. So one Robert Tolson of Montreal crossed the border and after only four months of being stateside, he seduced a former friend and had his head blown off by an unknown assailant.

I called and talked to a detective in Montreal to let him know one of their citizens were murdered and hoped that he could give me some back ground on the guy. It turns out that Robert Tolson was a well known alias used by a lowlife named Stephen Wallace. He was a part time performer for an all male revue in Montreal. When he wasn't doing that he was trying to milk ladies out of their money by making them believed he loved them. He was a fucking con artist. There were several arrest warrants out for the prick but before they could catch him, he just up and disappeared four months ago.

Now they knew where he ended up and now that he was dead, he was no longer their problem but mine. They even refused to accept the body for burial in Canada. I already knew who helped him with the fraudulent H1B Visa and in getting him across the border. If he came over for what I suspect he did, he was successful up to the point to where he had his head explosively relocated from his body.

With the day over with, I went home for the night. My wife had made me promise to be home on time today so she could give me my retirement present early.

As soon as I walked in the house the smell made my mouth water. She made my favorite meal. I'm a meat and potatoes guy mostly, but she has a recipe for Pacific Salmon with sauteed vegetables that is just outstanding. The food makes your mouth happy. It sits lightly in your stomach so when you thank your wife with an after meal romp, you're not weighed down and unable to...perform. If the food was any indication of what my retirement present is going to be like, then I'll be performing for her for a long time.

The meal was wonderful and when my wife told me what my real present was, I sat dumbfounded for a minute. She had siphoned off a few dollars from our paychecks for years and put it in an vacation account that would allow us to travel for the next six months uninterrupted. We always wanted to travel to Europe and visit her extended family in Italy and now we can do it comfortably.

Oh yeah, we performed for each other.

The next morning we talked over breakfast. Helen wanted to know how my investigation was going, but I could tell her little. What information I could tell, reinforced her hatred for the actions of her former friend. "Cheaters deserve whatever happens to them," was an new statement from my wife. "The more severe the adultery, the more severe the punishment," was another.

I, however thought using a shotgun to put a 3 inch hole in Beverly's chest and de-materializing a man's head and genitals seemed a little excessive, but I'm a cop and that just means more work for me...obviously. All in all I preferred a healthy dose of abject humiliation and financial ruination for any guilty party.

At the squad room the report from our forensic accountant was sitting on my desk. He reviewed the records of the three companies that were bidding for the Baker's job. Murder was usually for passion or money. This is the money part.

One company was a LLC in trouble to the point of bankruptcy. The company still had its backers but it was operating under very tight controls. The other company wasn't incorporated but was instead a partnership. One partner had a minor controlling factor in the company's ownership but not its operations. The major partner essentially ran every aspect of the business. The Articles of Partnership allowed the company to be dissolved with only a two month notice. The notice was intended to give the other partner(s) enough time to line up financing to buy out the interests of the separating partner.

According to court filings, that is exactly what happened a few days before the murder.

If the remaining partner(s) failed in buying the interests of the separating partner, the company is to be dissolved completely and it's assets sold and distributed according the financial interest of each.

The accountant made mention that having only a two month notice was very unusual. That normally wouldn't allow enough time for the other partner(s) to line up financing. Considering who the partners were, I don't think they ever intended to use it knowing it would most likely destroy everything they worked for.

Also, according to a different court, there had been another filing to dissolve the same partnership, but in an entirely different way. This action though, was given to the clerk of court one day prior to the petition dissolving the business partnership. He knew it was coming.

The filing in this court would automatically lock the finances of the parties involved. It essentially delayed the actions of any and all subsequent legal arguments. But since it was not a business transaction, the business partnership could continue to function until the court made it's decision. This court filing was used to protect the petitioner and to infuriate the respondent.

The third company was financially sound but with much less cash flow. It was a simple partnership with equal interests of ownership. This one though had none of the crazy by-laws to dissolve the partnership like the previous company. It's cash flow was smaller but the partners were putting every spare dollar back into the company causing it to grow twenty percent in the past two quarters alone.

The forensic accountant's reports confirmed the two suspects I already had. Right now it was a toss up of who was responsible for the killing. Being responsible doesn't mean they were the actual killer. If I find one, I'll find the other.

It was time to start rattling cages. Time was running short and I wanted to finish this up before my last day on the job.

I went by the office of the one company to talk to one of my suspects. The receptionist couldn't tell me where the man was, also telling me he's been acting strange lately.

Sounded like he was getting ready to run.

I drove over to the residence of John Hugh and parked far enough away to make sure he wouldn't notice me. While sitting there I observed Mr. Hugh and another man having what appeared to be a heated conversation. I recognized the man arguing with John Hugh immediately. There was an outstanding arrest warrant for the guy because his finger prints were at both Frank's house and his motel room.

Calling in for back up I warned the responding patrol to come in silent. They made the radio call when they were less than one block out. That was my queue to roll up and surprise the wonder twins. Needles to say, one shit bricks and ran while the other reached for a gun. He suffered only a flesh wound. I called for an ambulance while the two uniforms cuffed Mr. Hugh who actually made it about one half block.

After a trip to the hospital so the doctor could put a Band Aid on the idiot's boo boo, he and I went to join the runner at the station house. I spent the next several hours in interrogation talking about current events. Band Aid man refused to talk so I spent a little quality time with Mr. Hugh. It didn't take long before he spilled his guts...all over the floor.

After his lawyer and the District Attorney had a short conversation a deal was struck. The information he provided virtually guaranteed his next ten to twenty years would be spent in prison. He admitted he hired the hit man as a last resort because Plan A ran out of time and he was out maneuvered. He panicked and went to Plan B.

Plan A was hiring the Canadian gigolo to seduce Beverly. He figured Frank would get pissed off and do something stupid and get himself thrown in jail. After the Articles of Partnership came to light, Mr. Hugh knew that would be best. With Frank having to line up credit to buy out Beverly, he would lose the financial stability necessary to win the Baker's Realty contract.

Even though Canadian Bacon did his job well, Frank did his better. He filed divorce papers one day before Beverly filed to dissolve the business.

Plan B was the hit man. Since dead men can't win five million dollar building contracts, he figured if he had Frank killed, he'd get the construction job.

The interrogation of the hit man proved more difficult. He's been in and out of prison for so long he knew how to play the game. He was a non-violent offender until about ten years ago when he went to the dark side. Since that time he had served time for aggravated assault and was suspected of several strong arm robberies. Only recently was it rumored he hired himself out as a killer.

After being presented with the signed confession of Mr. Hugh, he admitted to accepting a job to kill Frank Nelson but denied even trying. OK, I expected this fucker to lie, doesn't mean I have to like it, but I did expect it.

He had difficulty holding his breakfast when I told him we had his fingerprints at the scene of the double murder and the scene of a motel shooting. After the mention of a capital crime he wanted to talk deal so he could keep the needle out of his arm. The District Attorney was running for re-election this November so he wanted a conviction badly and started to consider it.

As an act of good faith, our wannabe killer provided information that seemed to implicate my other suspect as he had eyes on the individual twice that night. The second time was when he did try to kill Frank by shooting up his motel room.

After knowing a hired killer was involved, the running theory was that Mr. Hugh gave the hit man poor intelligence on Frank so he went in and killed our friendly Canadian thinking he was Frank and since Beverly was a witness, he had to do her also. Only after did he realize his mistake did he try to kill Frank at his motel room.

But now after the man confessed to one attempted murder and giving information that could lead to the actual killer, I had my doubts.

In case he was telling the truth about not being Beverly's killer, the D.A. agreed to the deal only if the information he gave resulted in a conviction of the other person or persons he implicated.

Home was exactly what I needed after dealing with those two. Helen knew how to bring me back to the land of the living after a day like this. She has always been the light in the darkness I walked in.

The next morning I drove over to the offices of Nelson Construction to talk to my old friend. He seemed a little surprised to see me. I guess the expression on my face wasn't hidden as well as I hoped. I told him he needed to clear his schedule because we had more to discuss concerning his whereabouts the night of Beverly's murder. He asked if he could have an attorney present. After telling him that would be a good idea, he made a quick phone call and said his divorce attorney would meet us there.

Odd it wasn't a criminal defense attorney.

When asked, Frank re-accounted his activities on the night of the murders. Most had already been confirmed, but I wanted to see if his story would vary from his original statement. He pretty much kept to the script from before.

Consistency is good. He had word variation but still kept to the same story as before. If someone was telling the truth, they pretty much did it the way Frank just did. Too bad he left out some important details. His attorney sensed a need for a change in directions. He laid an envelope on the desk which contained the certified reports and photos taken by the private investigator Frank hired to follow his wife.

Needless to say, it was pretty damning. Frank had already told me that Beverly was cheating on him, but according to this report she was one cold hearted bitch. Robert Tolson or Stephen Wallace, or who ever you wanted to call him was screwing her blind for three months before he was killed. According to the report, he was only the last of several extra marital participants. Frank had her followed for the past year and knew of her affairs with just about everyone of her lovers.

The lawyer was trying to divert suspicion away from Frank to one of her former lovers. According to the private investigator's report, more than one of them were rode hard and thrown away wet . A couple of the lover's, "tweren't none too happy about being discarded so callously," as my pappy used to say. Any one of them could have held a grudge and wanted to take their revenge. The evidence contained in the envelope was going to be used in divorce court. He used adultery as a reason and named all her lovers in the action.

They were trying to add another player to the mix.

Bringing the conversation back to where it was before the attorney gave me the envelope, I told Frank it had been alleged by someone in custody that he had been seen leaving his house the night of the murders. And that the individual also described in detail the car he was seen driving away in.

It was about that time Frank decided he needed someone besides his divorce attorney with him. I agreed with him, telling him to contact his defense lawyer, I had time to wait. While he was making his call, I went out front to talk to my next contestant. The shift sergeant already had her sitting at my desk. Introducing myself, I told her I was almost done and would be with her shortly. All I got in return was a nervous nod.

Frank's defense attorney was busy in court for the rest of the day so we would have to continue our talk tomorrow at the earliest. I wasn't worried about him being a flight risk but still advised him not to leave town for any reason. Since I was still short on having any physical evidence, I couldn't arrest him. All I had was an allegation from a convicted felon who's story seemed hard to believe, but was beginning to be a bit more plausible.

Frank wasn't expecting this turn of events, nor was he expecting to see his girlfriend sitting at my desk while I led him out of the interrogation room. Both of them looked at each other then at me thinking they were in big trouble. Well yeah, I'm investigating a double murder...why else would you be here?

The conversation I had with his girlfriend, Barbara Baxter, was enlightening. It seems they have been an item for only about six months. She admitted she was in love with Frank and more than once begged him to end his marriage so they could be together. Their liaisons were few at first but with Frank admitting the end of his marriage was close, they upped their meetings to twice a week, but still very discreetly. She didn't understand the need to keep their relationship quiet since Beverly was screwing around herself.

Wonderful. She knew Frank was married and had no problems with fucking him. What is with these people? I've arrested serial killers that had better morals.

According to Barbara, Frank called her the night before his meeting needing her help. He forgot documents essential to his presentation with Baker's Realty in the morning and with his car being in the shop, he needed a ride home to pick up them up. Since Beverly wasn't expected to be home, it would be safe for her to go to his house with him.

However, when they pulled up she knew there was going to be trouble. Not only was Beverly home but she was entertaining her lover. Frank was furious. He accepted the fact that his marriage was in name only, but how dare she bring her boyfriend to his house! He went storming in and confronted them both. She couldn't make out what was being said beyond the yelling. She did see Frank push Beverly's boyfriend a couple times but that was all he did until Beverly got between them. To Barbara, it looked like Beverly didn't want Frank to hurt the guy. Frank took a moment looked at them both, turned and walked away. A minute later he came out with the papers he needed. After few hours of dealing with ODOT and the road construction they were back in Parkersburg.

According to Barbara, Frank's mood wasn't the best. Barbara said it was impossible not to feel his rage at Beverly for having her lover in his house.

Since this was a very important business trip for Frank, she was never expected to spend the night with him. He wanted to keep his mind on the presentation and their future.