Bottle Kill Ch. 01

O'Brady: "Boone had thought that Charlene had gone off to meet another man. When we told him she had been found dead, he was really shocked. At first he was a little distraught, then he composed himself and answered our questions calmly. He said he had no idea who'd want to harm Charlene, nor get at him through her."

O'Brady: "We also talked with her father, Charles Conway, who was in Miami. It turns out that he and Charlene were estranged, and he'd cut her off financially. He had never met Tex Boone, and said he didn't care to. He said there'd been no threats to her nor him through her, and he was overcome with grief when we told him she was dead. He took care of the funeral arrangements, as well, having her body brought back to Florida for burial."

I said "Did you get the perp?"

Shane: "No, we never did. How she made it to Pottsville, alive or dead, remains a mystery. We never identified any vehicle that could've brought her there. There was enough time for Boone to bring her down to the Pottsville hotel and leave her dead body there, but he denied leaving the hotel, saying he was looking for her at the hotel from the time he lost the round and went to his room."

Shane: "Paul Cash thought Boone was responsible for her death, but we had absolutely nothing to hold him over. He flew out to Las Vegas the next day, and we were never able to find a reason to get him back to the jurisdiction. And after that, an Agent Greenwalt of the SBI came to us with Wilson Hammonds, who demanded we cooperate with the SBI by turning the case over to the SBI and for us to not pursue it anymore. I heard later that the same thing happened in Westphalia, except that neither Hammonds nor any other politicians were there, only Greenwalt and another SBI Agent."

"Greenwalt, eh?" Teresa said with great acerbity. "We will not be interviewing him. He and his cohorts wounded me in the pit at Ward Harvester before Don dispatched them to Hell." (Author's note: A Tiny Slip', Ch. 01.)

"And you didn't forget about that pit, either." I said, remembering the chain of events that led to Teresa saving Carole by using that pit. (Author's note: 'Teresa's Christmas Finale', Ch. 01-02.) Teresa nodded vigorously in agreement.

Claire Michaels took over again: "Okay, let's move on. Tell us about the current dead fiancée, Tiffany."

"Yes ma'am." said Mary Milton as she brought up a Nevada DMV photo. "Her full name is Tiffany Adele Westgate, age 38. She was employed in Las Vegas by a staffing company, which I checked out; it's legit. She was a receptionist at the front desks of businesses, and also was listed as a 'hostess' at parties. It is very likely that she had extracurricular work that brought in under-the-table income, but she has no record of being arrested as a prostitute."

"Ma'am," said Roark Coleman, "prostitution is legal in Nevada."

Tanya Muscone said "Yes, but but only in licensed houses of prostitution. Streetwalking is still illegal. But the point is well taken, that it's all too easy for her to have been a working girl in Sin City and never have been arrested nor charged for it."

"Whatever she was," Mary continued, "she met Tex Boone and wrapped him around her finger. His spending went up by leaps and bounds over the last nine months: jewelry, clothes, trips to the Caribbean. He also began attending more social events with her, and they appeared on 'the Facebook' and Instagram pages of a number of minor celebrities, including Dr. Richard Searles's fiancee, Mia McNamara, and 'Days of Promise' star Benny Black." (Author's note: 'Soap Opera' for Benny Black's beginnings.)

"Hmmm." said Teresa Croyle, whose husband Todd Burke was Benny Black's blood brother. "Possible local connections?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." I said. "Keep going, Mary."

Mary said "There's not much more on her, sir. We'll keep digging, but I don't even know how she met Mr. Boone."

"That's fine." I said. "Okay, what about Boone's entourage?"

Mary said "There were a total of five security persons, employed by a Las Vegas company called Stalwart Security. The company is small, but has been growing over the last five years, and Mr. Boone had made investments in it as a startup in exchange for them acting as his own security. The leader of the security team is a man named Mike Malone, no relation to the TCPD's former Captain Harold Malone. Mike got an Associates Degree at a small school that happens to be Commander Croyle's alma mater..."

"Small world." said Teresa Croyle. I nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Small world indeed, ma'am, sir.' said Mary Milton. "He asked for a slot in the Military Police when he enlisted in the Army and got it, then went to Officer Candidate School. And like our own Commander Troy, here, he was commissioned into the Military Police Corps."

"Small world." I said in exactly the same way Teresa had. Chuckles started up in the room.

Mary Milton grinned, then said: "Unlike Commander Troy, Malone was passed over for promotion to Captain, and I haven't been able to obtain his military records yet to see why. But he was hired by the U.S. Secret Service, so he must not've done anything dishonorable in the military."

"That's probably truuuue." Chief Moynahan said, with the knowledge of a man who'd retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. "It's not that bad a black mark to get passed over for promotion to Captain. He could've just run into a commanding Officer that didn't like him and screwed him over. And I agreeeee that being hired immediately into the Secret Service shows it wasn't a dishonorable thing. My apologies for interrupting you, Mizzz Milton."

"No problem, Chief." Mary said, then continued: "Mike Malone was with the Secret Service on protection details for important persons, including six months on the Presidential Security detail. He left the Secret Service to join Stalwart Security right after its inception. The four men on his security team have similar stories, except none were military Officers. Two of them did work for the Secret Service, and two of them for the Arkansas State Patrol before joining Stalwart. Their names are James Jensen, Steve Stewart, Peter Paulson, and George Grayson, and we're still working to get more on them."

Mary: "Boone's assistant is blessed to have the name 'Mary', if I do say so myself." There were chuckles, then she continued: "Her surname is Carson. She's 24, unmarried, and is employed by the same Staffing company as Tiffany Westgate originally was. She had been Boone's assistant for a little over a year, and she handled all of Boone's travel arrangements and correspondence. But she did not have control of his pocketbook, so to speak. He had accounts with a small company, and a Gabriel Schwartzmann traveled with him to handle all of his financial correspondence issues and financial transactions."

"That's gotta be expensive." I said. "Definitely dig deep into that guy. Okay, I asked y'all to look into Marty McMillan, who appeared in the group while the Sheriff, the Iron Wolf, and I were meeting them. What's his story?"

Mary brought up his DMV photo from a drivers license issued by this State. She said "Marty McMillan is 45 years old, and has a Bachelor's degree in Biology from City University and a Masters's degree in Molecular Biology from our University here. He was in the Ph.D. program and dropped out, but he had enough hours to be awarded the Master's degree."

I said "Similar to Chemistry degrees in many Schools."

Mary: "Yes sir. He got a job with BigAgraFoods here, then transferred within a few months to a BigAgraFoods lab in Des Moines, Iowa. He was there for ten years, then left for a job with a smaller agricultural research company called SynGen Biosciences in the town of Villa Nueva, which is in the farmland region in the southeast part of the State, south of Westphalia and Alvaton, and northeast of Rocktown. He's still there as their Assistant Director of Research."

I said "Is he still married? Divorced?"

"Widowed, sir." Mary replied. "Her maiden name was Heather Corvalis, and she graduated from the University with Bachelor's degree in pre-med Biology. I have a death certificate for her because she died in this County, about two months after they were married. Cause of death was listed as 'exsanguination - internal hemorrhaging', and the certificate was signed by former Coroner Steven Lester Haines." (Author's note: 'Case of the Murdered Bride' for more on Haines.)

"Which means she bled out after receiving internal injuries." I said. "Does University Hospital's E.R. have a record of it?"

Mary: "No sir. She did not die at University Hospital nor any hospital or clinic in this County, and there is no TCPD Police report for her anywhere during that timeframe. And the really odd thing is that Coroner Haines put the autopsy under seal. There was no Coroner's Inquest, either."

"Okay, good report." I said. "You and your team gathered a lot of data in a short amount of time. What's next?"

Captain Michaels said "The MCD Detectives have interviewed everyone in Mr. Boone's entourage, and we've obtained what video footage from the Hotel that they had. They were very helpful and gave us no trouble, but asked us to be as discreet as possible during our investigation, and I assured them we'd be as discreet as we could be. We do still have three interviews we need to do on camera: you, sir; Sheriff Griswold; and Commander Croyle."

"Someone come with me and interview me now." growled Sheriff Griswold. "I'm going to be going to the Hotel within the hour for the first round of the Whiskey Tasting Championships."

"Good luck, sir!" chorused everyone in the room. The Sheriff barked a laugh. Detective George Newman exited the room with the Sheriff to do the interview.

"Anything stand out in the interviews?" I asked.

Lt. Jerome Davis said "We're putting together a timeline of everyone's movements from the time you, the Sheriff, and Commander Croyle saw him through the time the bodies were found. We're using the data from the interviews in conjunction with the video we've obtained."

Davis: "After you saw them, sir, we have video of Mr. Boone's group walking to the Whiskey side of the hotel, for lack of a better term. The cameras there seem to be working very well. The Boone group looks around the venue, Mr. Boone secures a bottle of whiskey... Woodford Reserve Rye, of all things... and then they go back to their room on the fourth floor, with some of the security men going with them, and some to the eighth floor, where their suite is."

Davis: "A lot of the hall camera coverage is spotty, and I got word from an employee... in exchange for a small informant fee... that the Feds took control of the camera resources for the whiskey convention. So we don't have a lot of hallway footage that we normally would have."

"Your Federal Government at work, wouldn't you say, Lady Ironside?" I said.

"I'm sure that wasn't my husband's doing." said Deputy Chief Tanya P. Muscone, who was nicknamed 'Lady Ironside' because she was a wheelchair-bound paraplegic after being shot in the spine (Author's note: 'Six Degrees', Ch. 01-02), and who was married to FBI Special Agent In Charge Jack Muscone (Author's note: 'Power of Love'.).

Jerome said: "Working within those limitations, we have the Boone Group in the elevator a few at a time, going to dinner at 7:30pm or so. At that time, things got busier around the hotel, and the recorders weren't recording every camera every time."

Davis: "They have dinner at 7:30. Mr. Boone plays cards afterwards. Then that feed jumps ahead 30 minutes going from 8:15 to 8:45, and Mr. Boone's fiancée is no longer in the room, or at least not on camera. There is also no camera footage of her in the hallway nor on the elevators."

Davis: "We do have this footage timestamped 9:45pm, showing Mary Carson getting on the elevator on the fourth floor and going up to the eighth floor, but again, the hallway cameras didn't record her getting off. At 9:55pm, we have Mr. Boone and one of his security men getting off the elevator on the fourth floor. Mr. Boone goes into his room, the security man goes into his own room, and that's the last we have of any of them that night."

"No one comes out of Boone's room?" I asked incredulously. At all?"

"At all, sir." said Lt. Davis. "At least not on video."

"Good report." I said. "Any (air quotes) 'strangenesses' for us?" Everyone knew what I meant in asking that.

Davis: "Yes sir, we have two, involving Marty McMillan. First, he was not in his room nor anywhere at the Hotel. Second, he used his room key once to go into Room 816, right after he was checked into the room by Mr. Boone's assistant. He never used the key again. We have a short piece of video showing him going into the nearest stairwell about an hour after checking in, but none showing him coming back into the Hotel through any entrance."

"Hmmm." I said. "Tell you what, contact the Campus Police to send a couple of people to wherever the Molecular Biology Conference is, and see if he's there. If he is, ask them to politely give him an offer he cannot refuse, to join us here at Headquarters and 'assist us with our inquiries', as our British friends say. If not, put out a multi-State APB for him."

"On it, sir." Lt. Commander Teresa Croyle said as she typed furiously on her Police iPhone.

"Good catch on him entering the stairwell." I said. "And just so you know, those stairs are fire escape stairs. Once you go into them, you have to descend to the ground floor to get out; all the doors above are locked and cannot be opened on the stairwell side without a master key, and I understand that the Fire Department itself has the only key. So Mr. McMillan had to have exited by the door that goes to the parking lot. Look for him on any cameras in that area."

"Wilco, sir." said Lt. Mary Milton.

"Okay, good work everyone." I said. "Unless someone has something else, y'all can go. I'm going to give my interview, then review the interviews."

"I have one thing, sir?" said Tanya with a wicked twinkle in her eye. "Lieutenant Milton, is there something you'd like to tell us?"

"Uhh... like what, ma'am?" Mary said, her cheeks just a bit rosier than before.

"Like if you're expecting?" Tanya said.

Mary looked at me, and I said "I didn't say a word."

Tanya said "You didn't need to, sir. Her cheeks are rosier than a perfume factory!"

"WHOAAAAAA!" rose a chorus of Detectives.

"Okay, okay." Mary said. "You keep ruining my announcement parties. Yes, Myron and I are pregnant." Lieutenant Myron Milton, the TCPD's Chief Information Officer and I.T. guru, was Mary's husband.

"So you told Commander Troy, but not the rest of us?" asked Mary's boss, Cpt. Claire Michaels.

"No ma'am, I didn't tell him." Mary said. "He took one look at me a while back and figured it out. Nothing gets past him."

Congratulations poured forth as the Detectives took their leave of us. Teresa and I stayed behind and Lt. Davis interviewed us as Mary Milton recorded.

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

Police Officers are people, too, and I needed a potty break. Afterwards, I made some fresh coffee in the pot in Classroom 'E', then invited the Chief, Teresa, Tanya, Captain Michaels, Lt. Mary Milton and Pottsville PD Lt. O'Brady back in to watch the interviews.

We watched Mike Malone's interview first. He looked haggard, upset, and worried; after all, as they say on the Sports show: 'You had one job...' The interview was conducted by Detective Teddy Parker, one of the better interviewers at crime scenes.

"The security team was in Room 816, which is a suite with four bedrooms at the end of the hall." said Mike. "I was in Room 406, which was next to Room 404 where Mr. Boone and Tiffany were, and Gabriel was in Room 408. Mary was across the hall, in Room 405."

"When was the last time you saw Mr. Boone, and Tiffany?" asked Parker. "Better yet, why don't you just give me the timeline from your meeting with the Sheriff until you last saw them."

"Sure." said Mike. "The way it works is that we have two people with Mr. Boone at all times, and they swap out after four hour shifts. I'm the third person, and I can spell one of them, or be there if Mr. Boone and Tiffany split up."

Teddy Parker: "What happens when Tiffany goes to the bathroom, especially with all of the security being males?"

Mike: "We're meant to be an optical presence more than Secret-Service-level full overwatch. If we determine there's a heightened threat level, we'd stand outside the restroom. But usually we can be more unobtrusive. If things are really squirrelly, we'd ask Mary to go into the restroom with Tiffany, which happened of its own accord more often than not. They were friends."

Parker: "And when you're on break, who's in charge?"

Mike: "Jim Jensen."

Parker: "Okay, so lead me through your day with the Boones."

Mike: "After we looked over the Poker tournament room, we went over to see the Whiskey Competition room on the other side. People were setting up booths, but they weren't allowed to sell any alcohol, and they weren't really set up, as it was. Still, someone slipped Mr. Boone a bottle of the Woodford Reserve Rye, and said he could pay for it the next day."

"How much does that bottle cost?" Parker said, astonished at the 'credit' that Boone was given.

"About fifty dollars, I think." said Mike. "And I made good with the guy today and paid for it."

Parker: "Okay, so you visited the Whiskey Event side, and then what?"

Mike: "Mr. Boone and Tiffany went up to their room, so I had my guys stand down and get some dinner two at a time, with the other two on call, like usual. I had them pick me up some takeout, and I ate in my room. About 7:30 or so, Mr. Boone and Tiffany went down to the dinner set up for the Poker tournament participants. They met two other couples and had dinner with them." Mike mentioned their names.

Mike: "After dinner, Mr. Boone wanted to play cards with the other two men. The wives talked amongst themselves and other wives, but Tiffany looked really bored, so she announced less than an hour later that she was going up to the room. She's kind of rude, that way. Mary and one of my guys... Paulson, I think... went up with her. And that was the last time I saw her alive."

Mike: "Mr. Boone played cards for a couple of hours, then the game broke up at about 10:30pm. I remember the time because I looked at my wristwatch. After the game, everyone went to their rooms. Steve Stewart and I escorted Mr. Boone on the elevator, I went with him on the fourth floor, I saw him go into his room, then I went into mine and went to bed. So I guess it was about 10:45 to 11:00 that I last saw him."

Parker: "So the next morning, did you try to get them up for breakfast?"

Mike: "Lord, no. We're ready at all hours, as Mr. Boone has been known to take 4:00am walks. But he also sleeps in, especially when there are time zone changes. And very often in the mornings, Mr. Boone would tell us to take the morning or early afternoon off, that he really didn't need us until an event in the evening. Truth be told, we really were there more for the optics. Window-dressing, if you will."

Parker: "In hindsight, were there any threats to Mr. Boone or his fiancée that you might not have realized at the time? Or any rumors that you heard that turned out to be worse? In other words, was there anyone who might've wished to harm them?"

"I know what you're asking," said Mike, "and the answer is that were no threats we were aware of, and no intel we'd developed that would've led us to think they were in heightened danger."

Parker said "There's something I'm going to have to ask, and you're in a good position to know. Were either of the Boone's having extramarital affairs that you knew of?"