Case of the Murdered Bride Ch. 04

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Trilogy Series, Dark Side Of The Force series, Caught In the Act series.

Case of the Murdered Bride Ch. 1-4.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, extreme language, and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial or racist language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 18 - Clutching at Straws, Continued

The Chief was right: telling my Detectives who I thought the murderer was, and why, had them saying "Oh, of course, that's easy."

Well, maybe not.

At 3:00am, the morning of October 13th, the police officers executing the warrant came back with the evidence I needed.

"All right, guys," I said. "This guy is potentially dangerous. If he tries something, have no compunction about putting a gun to his head and shooting him down."

I headed to Interrogation-Alpha with the patrol officers in tow. As I entered the room, Atkins woke up again.

"Dude," he said, "I don't want to be uncooperative with you guys, but it's time to either let me go home, or place me under arrest."

"Good enough." I said. "Keith Atkins, you are under arrest for the murders of Diane Lang and Tom Rollins." Atkins face was a mirror of shock as I recited his rights to him, then became angry. But seeing the tension in my officers, he did not try to resist as Patrolman Johnson cuffed his hands behind his back.

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"Man, you got nothing." Atkins said, this time from Interrogation-1, his lawyer by his side. I was surprised that this was a not-insignificant attorney about this Town: Atkins had some firepower behind him.

A patrolman was in the room to keep security, but I was otherwise alone on the police side of the table. But there were a bunch of people watching with utter fascination through the one-way glass, including Paulina Patterson, who was ready to come in if any deals were discussed.

"I beg to differ." I said. "We've searched your home, and we've got a black shirt with some blood in the fibers... yeah, you washed the shirt, but I'm betting my Crime Lab will get enough blood to show it's Diane Lang's. And...oh yeah, you didn't wash your shoes off, and I'm willing to bet that the dust on them matches the dust in the passageway where we found Rollins's body. We've got the DVD you gave Mr. Lang, which should be in his house, but was back in yours... which you took when you trashed his house after killing Diane. Why did you trash the house, Keith?"

Atkins didn't bother to answer. He just stared at me.

"So why did you do it, Keith?" I asked. "Or shall I tell you: you're a sex maniac, you're pushy with women almost to the point of rape... an accusation made against you while you were with a police department in another State. Their I.A. sealed the files, but the FBI got the information for me.

"You befriended Larry Lang at work, and he thought enough of you as a candidate for his swing club that he recommended you, especially after having a few beers with you and then watching you fuck those women on the DVD you gave him. But his wife and other women, they could feel something was wrong with you. Other people in other places felt the same bad vibe, and they were right, weren't they Keith?" Atkins said nothing.

I continued: "After getting rejected, you got pushy with some of the club members, especially Jessica Savage, who'd come out strongly against you. You didn't just sexually harass her, you threatened her, and that's when she complained to H.R. and to Larry Lang about you. Larry cut bait and didn't help you out; his wife had persuaded him that you were trouble. You had to leave Lightsource."

"So you keep getting rejected, Keith, you can't hook up with any of the fine women Larry Lang was banging, especially his beautiful wife; you only have that blonde tramp and a few prostitutes giving you the time of day." I said, noticing Atkins' face darken as I talked, especially when I spoke derogatorily of his girlfriend.

I drove the dagger further in: "When you found out about the Langs doing the bride-and-groom bit, you tried to work into that action, as well... and that's where Diane Lang really put you down, telling you that she didn't want anything to do with you. Am I right?" Atkins said nothing.

"And then what happens? You go to the City on business, and your client gets a call, and tells you that he has to leave. He'd been talking about swinging, and he said he was going to meet a woman to do a bride-and-groom roleplay. Here you were, being rejected, and this guy was sitting there telling you he was about to go bang the beautiful Diane Lang. He was part of her 'in' crowd, while you'd been explicitly rejected. God, that must've hurt, hearing that man not only telling you that, but leaving you behind without a sale in order to go fuck the woman you couldn't have."

"I have to give you credit, though." I said. "You thought it out well enough that you didn't drive your company car back to Town, and you left your cellphone in your room. Maybe you had a burner phone, but in any case, you hailed a taxi from the Hotel, which we got on tape, you took the cab to near the City Airport, where you rented a car and drove that back to Town."

"I do have one question: how did you know of the secret passage between Tower Condos and the University Hotel, and how did you get into them?" I asked. Atkins just stared at me.

"I'll find out soon enough, but you came into University Hotel by the side door closest to Tower Condos. You got into the secret stairwell and either went up to the sixth floor, or went into the lobby. Either way, somehow, Rollins got a glimpse of you, and instantly knew something was wrong. He went back to the room, got the cabbie out of there, and apparently went to find you. Perhaps Diane was supposed to run out down the other stairwell, but in any case you ambushed Rollins, broke his neck using your paramilitary training, went and killed Diane, then went back and took Rollins to the basement and into the passage." At that, Atkins's eyes glinted a bit.

"No, I see that I have it backwards." I said. "You killed Diane first, got out into the hallway without tracking blood, but then you were confronted by Rollins. After a brief struggle you broke his neck, and then disposed of his body. Then you left through the side door and somehow managed to get away and avoid all cameras. I find it interesting you were able to avoid the cameras like that; that suggests foreknowledge."

"Good luck proving that." said the lawyer.

"Thank you, counselor." I said, matching his sarcasm with my own. "Let's watch some TV." I pressed the remote, and the video footage of Atkins' first interview in Interrogation-A came on.

"What drew my attention to you as the murderer, Atkins," I said, "was that you spoke of Mr. Rollins in the past tense. This was before we found his body, so it's very strange that you, who was otherwise being very careful with your answers, and very smart, would refer to Rollins in the past tense, as if he were already dead." Atkins slid down in his chair a bit, realizing his mistake, knowing how costly it was.

"That doesn't prove a damn thing." said the lawyer.

"Then in the second interview a few hours ago," I said, "you continued to speak of the man in the past tense. That alone wasn't enough to get a search warrant of your home, but when Larry Lang said you'd given him a DVD of you having sex with women, trying to become a member of the Lang's swing club, I knew that such a DVD had not been found at Mr. Lang's home when we processed it after it was trashed. So we got the warrant to look in your home, and we found it. We also found a couple of Bowie knives identical in manufacture to the one that was left in Mrs. Lang's chest, we found the clothes and the shoes, and so on."

"Purely circumstantial." said the lawyer.

"C'mon, counselor," I said, "you know that many cases are built on circumstantial evidence, and we're starting to amass a lot of it. For example, Atkins' home is chock-full of paramilitary stuff, including books on weaponless home defense, including how to break a man's neck in personal combat... which is what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Rollins. But the video stolen from the Lang's home is not circumstantial, that's factual evidence that Atkins' broke into the Lang home that night and stole the DVD, then trashed the place. We may not get the blood, but the dust on his shoes? That's gotta hurt your client, counselor."

I pointed at the one-way glass, and a uniformed officer peeked in. I asked him to get the Assistant District Attorney. A minute later, Paulina came in.

"Mr. Atkins, I'm willing to offer you a deal, which I believe the ADA will accept also, that if you tell us who hired you to kill Diane Lang, you'll get a consideration of your sentence. Death penalty off the table, and such."

Keith Atkins' eyes widened in shock, as did Paulina's and Atkins's attorney's. "This is outrageous!" cried the attorney. "How dare you even suggest such a thing?"

"I dare," I said, "because I realized something very important, which I discussed with one of my detectives, another little thing that got me walking down the path that pointed to Mr. Atkins, here. I was surprised that a sales man would meet a company president on a first-time sales call, unless the sales agent actually knew that president before. But Atkins said that he'd never met Rollins before, so the strangeness of that was intensified."

"So what?" the lawyer said, his voice derisive and becoming a bit menacing.

"I'm getting there, counselor." I said. "Atkins could have known Rollins from having been at Lightsource, or possibly through the swinger groups the Langs were a part of. But no, Atkins instead said he never knew Rollins. So either Atkins is telling the truth and didn't know him, making my original thesis come to the fore; -or- you, Mr. Atkins, were lying because of another reason, which I realized: you were pretending to be a sales agent for Lightsource, not Stadler Office Supply!"

Atkins's face was one of pure amazement... that I was figuring it out. The lawyer's face was dumbfounded. Paulina's face was one of waiting for me to finish, knowing I was all over it.

"So..." I said, "either way, we have a strangeness. And I suspect that Rollins met Atkins at someone else's request, someone who knew Rollins. That would very likely be Larry Lang... or Barry Blair. So, Mr. Atkins, which one of those two men hired you to murder Diane Lang?"

"Enough of this shit!" gasped the lawyer. "Mr. Atkins, don't say another word to this son of a bitch!" Hmmm... mighty ugly the lawyer was getting, I mused to myself.

Atkins complied: "I have nothing to say. I'm invoking my rights and will answer no more questions. I want to confer with my lawyer now." Paulina and I left the room.

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Back in the main conference room, Paulina all but exploded on me.

"What the hell was that about somebody, either Lang or Blair, hiring Atkins to kill Diane Lang?" the lovely black Assistant District Attorney asked, seemingly angry. All of my Detectives and the Chief simply had shocked looks on their faces... except Cindy Ross, whose face was full of accusation.

"Guys, I didn't know it myself until a few minutes ago." I said. "I just realized it and Atkins' face gave it away when I asked about it. It was a longshot, but I think I'm right."

"Why don't you tell us all about it, so we can get this shit wrapped up and go home." ordered the Chief, his voice a growl... more of a growl than normal.

"I do apologize for keeping all of you awake." I said. "But we needed to process these guys and make sure the perps didn't get away. Paulina, I'm releasing Larry Lang tonight. I'll let the cabbie have his hearing tomorrow, and you can ask the judge to release him on his own recognizance."

"And Blair?" asked Paulina.

"At his hearing tomorrow, you really need to make sure he either doesn't get bail, or he gets an ankle monitor. I'm absolutely convinced he's involved."

"How?" said Cindy.

"Oh, the phone call to him, notifying him of Diane's death." said Martin, getting it.

"Yes." I said. "I played 'Myron' tonight and researched that call while we waited for Blair and Larry's lawyers to get here. It was from a burner phone, and from the cell tower on the Nextdoor County line, and at a time that would be consistent with Keith leaving the University Hotel, going to Lang's house, then driving back to the City..."

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"Miss Patterson," said Judge Folsom at 8:00am on October 13th, "This is an unusual request. The charges against this defendant are Class E felonies at best."

"Yes they are, Your Honor," said Paulina. "However, we consider Mr. Blair to be a flight risk; we fear he will attempt to flee the County if he is released. We're asking for an expedited trial and therefore no bail, or at least that he be ankle monitored if he is given bail."

"Your Honor, I must strongly object." said Blair's exhausted lawyer, who'd been kept up all night as I'd had Blair fully processed and put in a holding cell while the legal beagle bitched and moaned throughout. "These charges are extremely flimsy at best, should be misdemeanors instead of the felony versions, and the ankle monitor is wholly uncalled for. Mr. Blair has strong ties to the community and the Assistant District Attorney has not shown at all that he is, nor that he warrants this harsh treatment for such small charges." Blair simply watched the proceedings, his face cold and his eyes burning.

In response, Paulina laid out Blair's financial records and his frequent trips to Lake Amengi-Nunagen, which was out of State... and a sworn affidavit from one local Police Commander that a further investigation of Mr. Blair, as a possible co-conspirator in the murder of Diane Lang, was ongoing.

Judge Folsom thought about it, then said "All right, Ms. Patterson. This is one of the most unusual requests you've ever made of this Court, but when that Police Commander has you barking this strongly, he's usually right. I'll set bail at $100,000, and the defendant is to be ankle monitored and under house confinement while awaiting trial. Upon meeting bail, he will be considered to be in his attorney's custody..."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Now to get Keith Atkins to confess...

Part 19 - Solution

Once we had the info on the car Atkins rented, we were able to go back and look at the traffic tapes near the University Hotel, which had been preserved because of the crime that night. We got a couple of good images of Atkins driving the rental car. We also had witness statements from the car rental place near City Airport, and a still from a videotape of Atkins hailing the cab in front of his hotel in the City on the night of the murders.

In addition, Tower Condos keeps their videos for a week before overwriting them, and we got a not-so-great shot of Atkins working his way out of the University Hotel towards his car, which had been parked between the buildings, near the stairwell exit. It'd have to do.

The next day, October 14th, upon seeing the rapidly accumulating evidence against him, Keith Atkins cut a deal with the District Attorney's office. He confessed to the crime in exchange for a 25-to-life sentence with possibility of parole, a far cry from the death penalty case that might've awaited him.

He also agreed to testify against his co-conspirator, Mr. Blair. He admitted that Blair had asked him to pretend to be a Lightsource salesman and to meet Mr. Blair's 'friend' Mr. Rollins. He further admitted that he had called Blair after murdering Diane Lang, and when he gave us the location of the burner phone he used, we had a lock. Judge Folsom revoked Blair's bail when the new charges of conspiracy to commit murder were brought against him.

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Two hours later, Blair was offered a deal of 20 years in prison in exchange for his confession and guilty plea.

"So why did you do it?" I asked Blair. "Why have Diane killed? She was your friend, your wife's friend, and Larry's wife. Why?"

"That's just it, Commander." Blair said, staring at me as he spoke. "She was Larry's wife. As long as she was in Larry's life, I was nothing more than a weekend fling to Larry, which she could cut off at a moment's notice if she wanted to... like she did Keith Atkins. But once she was out of the way, I would be able to have a full relationship with him."

"So you're saying you had a woman murdered... for love?" I asked derisively.

"Yes." said Blair. "You wouldn't kill for the person you love?"

"Not like that." I replied. "And I think you'll find my Courts less forgiving than what happened to King David and Bathsheba. But I do have one question: How'd you get Atkins to do it? You sure didn't have the money to pay him."

"Information, Commander. Information." said Blair. "The value of good information is priceless, never forget that." His words triggered a memory in my mind as he continued: "I agreed to acquire some of Lightsource's cutting edge research and pass it to Atkins, which he could sell to one of several interested bidders, in exchange for killing her. He accepted the deal."

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"Come on, Keith." I said. "I could have your deal rescinded for holding out on me. Now who were the bidders for the information Blair was going to give you?"

"Mr. Crowbar," said Atkins, "if I do tell you, I'll be murdered. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I won't last any time in prison if I answered that question. I'll be marked for death. So go ahead and revoke the deal; I'm dead either way, and I'll take my chances on a trial and being executed by the State... or possibly being acquitted... over telling you that information and being dead for sure."

I couldn't argue with that; I was trying to negotiate from a losing position. I left Atkins' deal in place without getting what I wanted. I'd just have to find out another way.

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"What did he say when you asked him how he knew about the secret passage between the buildings?" I asked Paulina as we sat in the main conference room with Cindy, Martin, Lorena, Teddy Parker, and the Chief. We were talking about Keith Atkins and his confession.

"He said he'd known about the tunnels for years." Paulina replied. "He said he didn't really remember exactly who told him, but all his paramilitary paintball buddies knew about it. That's all we could get out of him on that."

"Yeah, riiiight..." I said. "I'm really wondering about that. I'm looking deeper into this one. Maybe it's the associations with the paramilitaries, maybe there's something about the Langs or Rollins, he was going to receive information that he could sell... there's a lot of loose ends to this one..."

"Not everything is more sinister than it appears to be, Commander." Cindy chided.

"We'll see, my friend." I said. "But this case has been pretty damn sinister, don't you think?... So Paulina, how close to correct was I on how he killed them?"

"Well, here's what he said he did." Paulina said. "He went into the side exit by using a master key on the door lock. He then went up the secret stairs, again using his master key, and came out on the sixth floor. He pretended to be waiting for the elevator when Rollins came out of the room and went to the ice machine room. There was no ice in that machine, so Rollins went downstairs to the lobby to see about getting some ice. Apparently he changed mind and came back up to the sixth floor fairly quickly. Atkins saw Rollins hurry back to the hotel room where Diane was, and a moment later Rollins was leading the cabbie to the far end stairwell."