Case of the Paper Trail Ch. 04

This was too easy, I thought as I saw Harmon Biller's face show its own fear. I continued: "You then took the bodies down the road, almost to the County Jail, perhaps figuring that the last place the Police would look would be within a few yards of one of their buildings. At any rate, you went home, washed out your truck, Cloroxed it down, then changed out the tires to the new ones. You went and got Charleen's cell phone from her car at the Kroger, now that it was dark, and went to the Davis house."

"You found Davis to be asleep, so you crept in, sent the text message from your wife's phone to your own, then planted both phones in the drawer, with Charleen's phone set to vibrate only and your wife's phone with the sound still on. You had taken up some blood when you killed the women; you left a spot of each woman's blood on Davis's carpet. You then left the sheet of stationary- yes, there's that stationary again, Mr. Biller- and then you went and cloroxed down the trunk of Mr. Davis's car. That was a touch, but it wasn't enough, Mr. Biller."

"Anyway, after that, you left the Davis home. You went and disposed of the tires and whatever blood you still had, then went home, cleaned out the truck one more time, and went to bed. You never did try to call your wife, but Davis did... but he didn't hear his wife's phone vibrating inside the drawer."

"You're an engineer, Mr. Biller. You planned this for weeks if not months, and you planned it to a fine level of detail. You drove around for several days beforehand, testing the routes, seeing what the traffic was like, checking to make sure cameras weren't recording you too much. You went through a dry run the day before, at the approximate times you expected to actually commit your crimes. And then you did it for real and it went off like near-clockwork for you."

"Now I've got proof of so much of this that, coupled with my narrative I just gave you, a jury is going to be begging to convict you and recommend the death penalty, which the judge will quickly assign to your sentence."

The lawyer was looking at me with utter shock on his face. Harmon Biller was no longer looking at me, but down at his lap. "I... I need to talk to my lawyer." he said quietly. We got up and left the room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the room. I had Tanya come in too, having seen the expression on her face when Paulina and I had gone back into the anteroom, and as some measure of vengeance of the disrespectful way the lawyer had treated her earlier.

"My client wants to know what we can work out." the lawyer said. "I'm opposed to any deal, but he insists that I negotiate with you."

"I'm pretty much opposed to any deals as well, Counselor." said ADA Patterson. "I see no reason to negotiate anything. I've got a strong death penalty case, here."

"I'll save you the time and trouble and expense of a trial." said Harmon Biller. "And I get to live."

"In exchange for your full confession, cooperation, and guilty plea to each murder," Paulina said, "you'll get consecutive sentences, 25-to-life, meaning you won't be eligible for parole for 50 years."

"I again urge you not to take this, and plead 'not guilty'." Biller's lawyer said to him. "I think you should fight this all the way."

"No, I'll take the deal." Biller said. He turned to his lawyer and said "You can go now." The lawyer quickly gathered his things and exited the room.

"Do you wish new counsel?" I immediately asked Biller, to make sure he didn't create a legal loophole for himself.

"No." said Biller, then began his narrative, looking at Paulina. "It happened just as this man here said it did, except that I didn't know for sure if Edna was going to meet a man that night or not. I swear to God as he was talking that I think he must've been watching me the whole time. I thought I had it planned out perfectly. Where did I go wrong?"

"I'll tell you after you tell your story," I said, "which will include your reasons for the crimes, and where you dumped the tires."

"It was as you said." said Biller. "My wife was having an affair. I suspected for years that she'd been having affairs, that her stories of meeting other woman, as well as the hints that she was drinking behind my back, were all just stories to cover that she was having affairs."

"She met this Charleen Davis about three months ago." said Biller. "That woman was evil, a real witch. She was the one pouring venom into my wife's ears, suggesting that my wife leave me, even introducing Edna to other men in the hopes Edna would start dating one of them."

"I guess I was half-mad." Biller continued. "I had all these grand schemes in my mind about killing Edna, even getting a second set of wheels for my truck so that I could drive her and Charleen out to the farms and kill them. Then I thought that I'd just divorce Edna and go on with my life without her. Hell, we'd been separated in our minds if not our actual lives for years-"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Biller." I said, interrupting him. "Let me just ask one quick question: did you consult with anyone on your plan to murder your wife before you did it?"

Biller's face registered shock... the shock of me knowing, not of his innocence. But he still lied: "Er no, of course not. Why would I just go tell someone that I wanted to kill my wife?"

"Maybe you were helped with your plan, in exchange for you being a courier of certain things to Germany when you went on your business trips there? And perhaps in exchange for information on some of BigPharmaCorp's processes?" I pressed.

"Uh... no, no," Biller said, the look on his face turning from an attempt to hide shock... to an attempt to hide fear. "Nothing like that at all."

"Okay, then." I said. "I'll tell you what: just go ahead and sign these confession papers, here, and let ADA Patterson file the paperwork for the plea deal. And I'll go ahead and tell you where you messed up."

I leaned forward just a bit and said "It was the stationary. I'm not going to say you would've gotten away with it, but if you'd grabbed her stationary instead of your own, you might well have had a shot for reasonable doubt with a jury, if you had a really hotshot lawyer working for you." Biller just nodded. I got up and left as Biller signed the paperwork Paulina was presenting to him.

"What was that consultation and courier thing about?" Chief Griswold asked as we walked down the hallway.

"Just a longshot." I said. "I think someone helped him with the concept, and probably gave him the Town's camera coverage information. Also, the financials are a bit too simple and tight, and I just have this feeling that there is something notthere that should be..."

"So why did you stop him from talking any further?" the Chief asked.

"Because he's mad." I said. "He is a sick, deranged man, and if he'd talked much further, he might have gotten away with a 'guilty but insane' verdict. I'm not sure his wife ever was having affairs with other men, for starters."

I continued: "In any case, this way he goes to prison for the rest of his natural life... which won't be that long, if I don't miss my guess." I then covered my verbal slip by saying "He's not totally well physically, either, if I don't miss my guess."

"The medical profession lost a great doctor when you turned your energies elsewhere." said the Chief, and I simply could not tell if he meant it or if he was letting me know he was seeing through me as he said "Well, I guess I better call Jack Colby..."

Part 17 - The Iron Crowbar's Solution

Saturday night in the back room of The Steakhouse, MCD held a semi-official retirement party for the Chief, which Town & County Councilman John 'Jack; Colby had insisted on hosting and paying for. It was also a celebration for solving the Biller-Davis murders. In addition to myself and Laura, there was the Chief and his wife, Cindy Ross and Jenna Stiles, Paulina Patterson and her husband, Tanya Perlman by herself, Martin Nash and Sandra Speer, Diana Torres from MCD and Christopher Purvis from Vice (were they dating?), Myron Milton and Goth Girl Mary Mahoney (most definitely together), Theo Washington and Nurse Jones (were THEY dating?), Teddy Parker and Sonali from I.T., and beautiful young Joanne Cummings... with handsome young Seth Warner.

After eating and conversation, the subject rather quickly drifted to the case. I made a toast to the entire MCD Team, telling them that they had solved the case without me, and done so very well, and that they should celebrate the victory. Still, some just can't be happy unless they are unhappy... particularly ruggedly gorgeous platinum blondes with blue crowbars.

"You had it solved days before we did." said Cindy. "C'mon, admit it."

"I can't think of anything that I saw or found that you guys didn't." I said. "Seriously, guys, you did a great job without me."

"Yes, you did very well." agreed the Chief, who was already into the bourbons and his cheeks getting rosy.

"I still feel like we missed something." said Martin Nash. "So, for our education, what could we have done better?"

"Well, you might have saved some time-" I started.

"Whoooooooooaa!" came a sudden and huge chorus, as if on cue.

"Guys, you really did it." I said, nonplussed. I really did not want to take away from their achievements.

"Come on, Crowbar One, spill it." said Tanya. "It took you three days, and us over a week."

"Just tell us your thought process going through it... for our education and efficiency, of course." said Martin Nash. He really did want to learn, I realized.

"Okay, okay." I said. "I think you'll find as I talk that you did have all the clues, but here goes: when I got to the Biller house, the first thing that stood out, that came to my attention, was the paper that Edna's note was written on. It was different, if slightly, than Edna's stationary paper, and I could see by the watermark that it was made in Germany. There were few other pieces of paper of that kind, and Edna's stationary was indeed different, having been made here in the USA."

I continued. "Now I want you guys to use your imaginations, and to put yourselves in Edna's position of writing a note. Would she go to her husband's desk, search for paper, write a note that was clearly on the top piece of paper of a pad or sheaf, tear that paper off, leave it and then put the rest of the paper up? And put the rest of the pad where I, the Iron Crowbar, couldn't find it despite a search specifically for it?"

After looking around at everyone, I said "No, I think she'd sit at her desk, write on her paper, and leave that on his desk. But that isn't what happened, so I was already looking askance at Mr. Harmon Biller and the scene before me."

I said further: "I also thought that the paper itself was unusual. It's a particularly strong and absorbent paper, that allows writing even on smudged areas better than most papers, which is why the people at BigPharmaCorp liked it. But it was not sold in any stores here in the County, and I would discover that it was very hard to obtain, and quite expensive. That was one of the three emails I got Thursday, three days after the crime was first reported: I'd sent a correspondence in German to the company that makes the paper, and the reply was in good high German: they do not export that paper, at all. The only way to get it is from the company that makes it, and from their outlet store in that town."

"You speak German?" Martin Nash asked.

"Ja wohl, ich spreche ein bissein Deutsch. Ich studiert Deutsch am Universität. I said. "I took it in college, and Laura speaks a little bit, also." I greatly downplayed just how good Laura's German was; she was fluent. Laura did not bother to comment.

"Anyway," I said, continuing on, "the paper could only have been obtained in Germany, and guess who was going there frequently and obtaining it. Biller's greatest mistake was that he grabbed his own stationary instead of his wife's before leaving home, and that tiny slip brought down his entire elaborate scheme."

"So," I said, "when we went to the Davis house, I was not in the least bit distracted by the obviously planted evidence. Two little spots of blood? Really? He's going to fool my Crime Lab with that? I don't think so. And no indeed, he did not fool us, especially Detective Cummings."

Joanne blushed and Seth smiled as he looked at her as I went on: "I didn't have a motive yet, but I had a good idea in my mind that Biller was involved, and I already feared that the women were dead. The narrative was already forming in my mind, especially when I heard that his truck had been Cloroxed out. He was making it so obvious, almost too obvious, and maybe he thought he could hide in plain sight."

"The second email that I got," I said, "was from BigPharmaCorp, confirming his credit line with them while he was a full employee. What I realized was that his expenses were simply too few. They'd left his credit line open even after he retired, and would just pay the expenses themselves when he sent in an expense report; ergo, the practically never showed up at all. Only after he took a couple of cash advances did any reports show up; they'd take the advances out of his pay, but they still showed up. I've still got some issues with all of that, but we'll leave it for the moment."

"I now tried to figure out just what he'd done." I said. "How did he get Edna to write that note? Clearly it was her handwriting, but one can tell from the shakiness of it that she wrote it under extreme duress. Ergo, he was threatening her. Her own life? Maybe, but maybe not. Someone else's life in the balance? That made more sense. So I now have him extracting the note out of his wife to complete his illusion at his home.

"We found the bodies, and the looks on the dead women's faces told me that Charleen had likely died first and that Edna had witnessed it: her own death followed within moments. At that point, it was a matter of finding out just where he might have traveled, getting some video of him traveling where he was after saying he was at home, etc. I sat back and thought about that, thinking that as an engineer he would've planned his routes carefully, would know cameras are out there and how he could best avoid them, which is becoming a cottage industry these days. And then it hit me: if he was planning that carefully, he likely would practice driving his routes beforehand."

I saw my Detectives look around at each other. "Yes, this might be where I got one over on you. But not in the evidence; only in my imagination of what this criminal might have done. Definitely strive to use your imaginations, though don't exceed what the data tells you."

There was a murmur of agreement as I continued: "So I started looking at tape not of the day of the murder, but of the day before, and the day before that. He was much less careful those days, and I caught plenty of video of him. In the Kroger parking lot, driving all the way through and around it, not just up to a car as he would do the next day. He did a lot more zig-zagging Saturday, and went into and out of dead zones a lot more, but I had an idea of what he was planning... by thinking of how I'd do it myself based on his trailblazing the route."

"To make a long story short-" I said.

"Too late." said Cindy (of course). Laughter prevailed for a moment.

"Good grief." I said. "Anyway, by seeing where he'd gone Friday and Saturday, I looked at some places on Sunday and got a few pieces of video evidence of him being in various places, including the outskirts of Town after dark, where he was taking the women to meet their destinies. I also knew he had come back to Kroger for Charleen's phone, and I was able to get some video of him on streets near there at the time he said he was elsewhere. It was only now a matter of finding some stronger evidence to show the motive."

"And that is where my third email came in: from the Women's Law Firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, particularly my niece-in-law. I know Cindy got that same info, so it's not like my family connection was special, but it was nice getting it. I didn't even try to get info from Effim, Goode & Hart, so Cindy one-upped me there, and most effectively, I admit."

Cindy just grinned at me as I went on: "Now I do have to say that there is virtually no evidence that Edna Biller was having extramarital affairs, and that those might be Harmon Biller's fantasies in his deranged mind. But he did try to file for divorce and his wife found out; ergo, her own visit to an attorney. Having been found out about the divorce plans, Harmon then executed his plan... to execute his wife."

"Anyway, I put all that I found into evidence," I said, "then assigned Rudistan and his squads to watch Biller and to place him under arrest if he left the Town City Limits line. He laid low, though, wondering if he'd beaten us, but he had not. You guys effected the arrest, and the case is solved. Now I don't think there's anything I found that you didn't, I just used more imagination and less time... and you guys did discover the information about the tires, which I did not get to at all."

"Any idea where he dumped the old tires?" asked Myron.

"Yes." said Paulina. "He admitted he dumped them into the River from the property of his farm cooperative. The Coltrane County Sheriff and Deputy Strait found them pretty quickly for us, as well as a bag containing the women's car keys, small bottles of blood and used plastic pipettes, and they've turned all that evidence over to us. So it's over for Harmon Biller.

"Any idea why he bagged them instead of throwing them out separately?" Sandra Speer asked.

"By that time, I'll bet he thought he'd gotten away with it, and didn't really think about it." said Martin Nash. "Well, I can see that we still have a lot to learn from the Iron Crowbar."

"You've learned to kiss ass much better than he has, that's for damn sure." said the Chief with rosy cheeks, a merry smile, and twitching of large mustaches. This party was about to get out of hand...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"I think you're right about Harmon's thoughts of his wife having extramarital affairs was largely in his own mind." said Cindy as we discussed the case over the next few days.

"Yes, though one thing occurred to me, which you need to keep just between us and the crowbars." I replied. "I think whoever helped Biller with the crime may have been the one that was porking Edna Biller. If Harmon Biller knew a name of anyone fucking his wife, he would only conceal that name if it was that same helper... if Harmon knew at all..."

"And I take it that this 'helper' is a Master and Consultant of Crime, who has stayed in the shadows as others do his work for him and confront you over the Chessboard of Crime?" Cindy asked, her language flowing and flowery.

"Nice flowing and flowery language, there, Crowbar 2." I said. "You should write crime stories for erotic web sites." Cindy's eyes lit up as if she thought that was a good idea...

Also, over the next few days, I watched one piece of tape from the Kroger parking lot several times. I had already logged it into evidence, and made an extra note that went into my locked drawer.

The video had come from the Friday before the murders, the day after Thanksgiving. Biller wasn't evident in the tape, but there were two cars very clearly in view, alongside each other with their driver-side windows in conjunction. I watched the tape, showing a woman that was clearly (to me) Coach Brian Harlan's home hospice nurse receiving a package from the woman in the other car. It did not take much detection work to determine that the driver of the other car was the nurse from University Hospital known as 'Nurse Ratchett'. And it was clear to my fertile imagination that Nurse Ratchett was where the morphine that ended Harlan's life had come from.