Safe Room Ch. 04

"Oh, I'll have to do better than that." I said. I ordered a round of shots for the Veterans at the table, and for me and the Chief, on my tab. We toasted the Allied victory, downed our shots (the veterans doing so as if they were drinking water), and then the Chief and I made our goodbyes and went into the back room. The Veterans continued to celebrate with liquid refreshments; they'd earned that right.

The MCD and Vice Detectives were there, except for Coldiron Masters. The group also included Sergeant Rudistan, Sr. Patrolman Morton, Sr. Patrolman Hicks, and Precinct Lieutenant Irwin. And no party would be complete without Chief Griswold, Teresa, Jack Muscone and Tanya Perlman and little Pete Feeley, Callie Carrington, and to my surprise, D.A. Krasney and A.D.A. Paulina Patterson, who had brought Tasha. Of course I took possession of my daughter while we all ate, and Tasha smiled brightly at me as I talked with her.

Finally, spoon tapped glass in Cindy's hands. "I hate to break up the lovefest with the baby, Don, but we want to know the solution to the case."

I smiled and handed Tasha back to her mom, then started as the room got quiet.

"I will admit," I said, "that this case was trickier than I first realized. It might have been easy to go astray, to have 'reasonable doubts', or to falsely implicate Melissa."

"When we went to the house," I said, "there were several strange things about it. A lot of food built up and stored in the pantry suggested a prepper. The smallness of the back hallway suggested a space behind the bookcase in the study. One thing I do at a crime scene is get a mental idea of the dimensions of the rooms of the building we're in. There was clearly an unaccounted-for space. So before I even spoke to Jeffrey Burnham, I had the idea that Tim Burris was a prepper type."

"Jeffery Burnham not only made no effort to tell us Tim was a prepper," I said, "I suspected he knew of the safe room and the shelter below, and didn't say a word about it. So I'm already looking at him with deep suspicion before I'd left the premises after finding the safe room."

"We found the safe room, then the shelter below, and we almost lost Rudistan and Morton in the process." I said. Rudistan's grin was more wry than mischievous as he got some applause. "Fortunately, Captain Ross had concerns and we had the Fire Department people there to help us out. But it did show me how the murder was done: carbon dioxide gas. And we found out that the tanks were mislabeled, and the shelter's air filtration system was sabotaged."

I continued: "I want to add at this point that I think that shelter was an absolute joke. It could not have truly supported life in a hazardous environment for very long at all. That air filtration system was supposedly rated for an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) environment, but for only as long as the batteries or generator held out. The generator only had enough fuel for about 24 hours, and I know that because it's the same type as University Hospital's three such generators. And they have a refueling plan; Tim would have no such recourse."

"Add to it that the waste filtration and water recycling system was not very good, and anyone in that shelter was in for a miserable existence beyond about 72 hours. And I'm not telling you that idly. I'll come back to its importance later."

"So we found Mr. Burris's body, and he's been dead since early April." I said. "And when I pointed out the coincidental timing to the sabotage of the power station, I might have accidentally led some of you astray. In the end, it was true that Ferrell sabotaging the power station led to Tim going into his shelter, and to his death, but it might have distracted from the real issues of the case."

"I will add here that it was probably Ferrell and his cohorts that tore up the house." I went on. "They were looking for something, perhaps something related to Burris's parents and their deaths, or something else. Fortunately, I treated the damage to the house as just the piece of data it was, and did not let it cloud my thinking nor distract from the case. And I think we'll say no more about what Ferrell was looking for."

"Moving along" I said, "we had two main suspects: Melissa Burris and Jeffrey Burnham. And then we caught them together having sex, which added motive but also added a complication to the case. I now had to consider if Melissa was part of the problem along with Jeffrey. It was not easy: both of them were lying like dogs in the shade. Melissa claimed she didn't even know of the shelter, but that was so unlikely that I considered it to be inconceivable and untrue. And Jeffrey had lied about numerous things, including not knowing that Tim had traveled to chess tournaments as well as prepper and gun shows."

"Jeffrey was not very forthcoming about information," I said, "but he was even more evasive about Melissa. That suggested in the back of my mind that he was being more that just chivalrous when he was trying to protect her. And then we caught them together, and I allowed my mind to explore the possibility of murdering Tim for the sake of their relationship."

"So that left the question of separating the wheat from the chaff; that is, separating Melissa's actions and motives from Jeff's. Melissa lied about not knowing about the shelter, but she clearly had no idea nor interest in how it ran; she went down there with Tim to get sex from him, and they never stayed down there longer than overnight. But of course Jeffrey knew all about the shelter; he'd admitted Tim had taken him down there and 'shown him around'."

"Melissa also knew that she could make no claims on the house, and she knew that long before she left Tim." I said. "So every time Jeffrey brought that up, especially in his first attempt at a hypothetical confession, which really was hypothetical in every way possible, I knew he was lying."

"Now... could Melissa have manipulated Jeffrey into killing Tim for her?" I asked. "Of course, but for what purpose? What motive? She left Tim out of sexual frustration, and apparently Jeffrey wasn't any better in the sack. So I discounted money as the motive, as Melissa knew she was getting no money if Tim died."

"So while I never completely ruled out Melissa," I said, "I knew I needed a lot more to put her back on the front burner. I turned to the idea of Jeffrey. What motive would he have? Money? No. Jealousy? Ah, now we were getting somewhere. Even after their divorce, Melissa was going to Tim for sex. I know that because it's the only reason Tim would have Viagra, and I think he may have hoped Melissa would come back to him."

"So Jeffrey, who was in love with Melissa and wanted her for himself, decided to kill Tim. He approached Benny Brighton, who had gone to prepper meetings to recruit anti-Government white persons for his white supremacy militia, and Benny put Jeffrey in contact with Ferrell. Ferrell was already going to sabotage the power station, and may have suggested Jeffrey stay with Tim that day and coax Tim into the death chamber, but Ferrell likely did not know Jeffrey was going to sabotage the chamber. Jeffrey then closed the doors to the safe room and left the house, and Ferrell came in and trashed the place."

I then said: "Yes, that makes Ferrell the new 'Consultant of Crime', and I have no regrets about his career ending much more swiftly than Westboro's." Everyone laughed and cheered.

"How do you surmise all that?" asked Tanya. "Especially that Jeffrey left Tim in the safe room?"

"The doors to the safe room should've been bolted shut." I said. "That what Tim would've done when he started his 48 hour test. Yet I was able to get the doors open. Ergo, someone had been in the safe room portion, let Tim go into the chamber and seal it, then that someone left, closing the safe room doors from outside, which of course made him be unable to bolt them once he was outside. I surmise that was Jeffrey."

"So that would suggest that Ferrell didn't necessarily want Tim dead." Tanya said, a twinkle in her eyes.

"You are too good for your own good, Lady Ironside." I replied. "Okay, any questions?"

"The Braille?" asked Parker, which made Chief Griswold laugh.

"I'm still not past the Iron Crowbar seeing that." said the old Chief.

"That may have been what Ferrell was looking for when trashing the house." I said. "I still don't know what it means, so we'll keep on going. Any other questions?"

"I guess I don't see how you exonerated, or excused, Melissa so quickly, sir." said Joanne. "I try to not form theories before facts, but all the facts I see suggest she could have been in collusion with Jeffrey to murder Tim."

"Yes." I said. "You're right to a very large extent. But here are the counter-arguments: if Melissa wanted Tim dead to claim the house, is the elaborate scheme of the safe room, where Tim might stay missing for months, even years, a good way to kill him? We've arrested a few women in the past few years; their methods of killing have been far more efficient and obvious."

"And speaking of the 'elaborate scheme'," I added, "if you're wondering whey Jeffrey didn't try to kill Tim this way sooner... because he knew Melissa was going into the shelter with Tim, and of course he did not want to kill her. And if he kills Tim by more obvious means, Melissa would figure out he did it, which would hurt his chances of wooing her himself."

"Another thing was that Melissa cried when she was told Tim was dead." I went on. "Yes, it could've been faked, but the Officers interviewing her, whose judgement I trust, thought she'd have had to have been a fantastic actress to pretend to not know Tim was dead, and then to cry on command when she heard he was dead."

"And there was also the small test I ran, having them run into each other out of the Interrogation Rooms... a very successful test. I saw then that Jeffrey loved Melissa... but Melissa did not love Jeffrey, so sorry for Jeffrey. I believe my Captain of Detectives made that same observation."

"She sure did." said Cindy. "And felt the vibes, too."

"So..." I said, "I allowed Jeffrey's 'hypothetical', where he tried to put it on Melissa after realizing that she didn't love him, after all. And the things he attributed to her doing, I knew it was how he had gone about it, thus filling in a few small blanks."

"It all fits." Jack Muscone said. "Every clue was there. But it was the mind of the Iron Crowbar that took it all in and made sense of it."

Part 20 - Epilogue

Tuesday, May 9th, 6:00am. I knew this had to be done. The evening before, I'd asked Captain Teresa Croyle to come to my office at this hour. She showed up just a bit early.

"Let's have a seat on the sofa." I said. We sat down side by side. This sofa was not very good for a person with a bad back to sit on, but the pain reminded me that pain was a privilege to bear, and I had the regrettable duty of administering some pain myself.

"Thanks for coming in." I said as I turned the anti-bugging device on. "There is something that I need to tell you."

"Sure, sir." said Teresa, studying my face to glean what it could be.

"I recently found out," I said, "who was behind the theft of the liver meant for Amy. We still can't prove it, but this may be one of those we don't care to see in a Courtroom." I saw Teresa's face showing her own pain at the memories of Amy and the horrible act that destroyed the girl's chance at life.

"The man behind it was Wallace Bedford." I said. "His son was also critically ill, and still is. The liver was stolen for Bedford's son. But when it arrived, another and better match arrived from somewhere else, and that liver meant for Amy was used."

I looked Teresa square in the eyes as I said "The organ meant for Amy was discarded, just thrown away like a piece of trash. It was not used to save the boy's life."

Tears formed in Teresa's eyes as she absorbed what I was telling her. "Wallace Bedford is also a founding member of Superior Bloodlines. He brags of being the descendant of a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan. He believes a life like Amy's was worthless compared to his own and his son's." Now I was seeing anger behind the pain in Teresa's face.

"So, the balloon is going up, and soon." I said. "I am sure that when I ask you 'Would you like a shot at the title?', you know exactly what I am asking." Now Teresa's face was dead to all but Justice.

"Yes sir, I do." she replied. "And yes sir, I want that shot."

"You shall have it." I promised. "When the time is right, you shall have it..."

Finis.