Bottle Kill Ch. 02

I continued: "It also shows a pattern for the Officer. As long as his ratings stay the same or go up, he's fine. In the case of Malone, he had four OERs. In the first one, he got all ones, and was marked in the fourth box, while the third box was average. That's no big deal, it gives the Commander a chance to improve the Officer's score. My Commander did that to me."

Me: "In the second one, he got all '1's, then was marked in the third box, which is an improvement for him. And then came the third OER. He got a '2' in the EO/EEO block, which is the 'equal opportunity' block. And his Commander marked the fourth block. The final OER was all '1's and a mark in the third block. But that 4-3-4-3 would be enough to deny him promotion, even if the '2' on the EO/EEO block didn't."

Me: "I'm reading the comments by the rating Officers, and it's all 'Officer-ese', the word salad that makes us have to read between the lines. His Captain wrote that he 'must give good Enlisted Personnel opportunities to advance', while the Commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, wrote simply that 'Lieutenant Malone continues to grow into his position of an Army Officer'. That's a nice way of saying he had a 'hiccup', and got bad marks for it."

"So he's a racist?" asked Malone.

"There's no way to tell until I interview him again." I said. "It could've been any number of things. It sounds like he didn't advance an enlisted man, who might've been ethnically a minority, but we don't know the full story. And we don't know if one or both of the rating Officers are white or minority."

I continued: "I'm looking at his Secret Service evaluations, as well. Something happened while he was on the Presidential Security Detail. The specifics are redacted, but there's enough left to show that he apparently didn't do something that he should've done, and that his 'lapse in judgement' was egregious enough to remove him from that detail. He was transferred, but subsequent evaluations are word salads that showed he generally did a good job, but little things were getting through that should not have been."

"What about the others?" Tanya asked.

"Jenson and Stewart were former Secret Service, while Paulson and Grayson were formerly with the Arkansas State Patrol." I said. "Jenson may have gotten in trouble for the same things Malone got in trouble for, as he was written up at the same time, and it's largely redacted. But Jenson was never on the Presidential Security Detail. "

Me: "Paulson and Grayson never received any blatantly bad marks, but like OERs their evals are 'word salad', and it looks like they were not considered exceptionally good. In the military, if someone is passed over for promotion, they're pretty much separated from the Service. In the State Patrol that might not be the case, and they may stay at their current positions for a long time. In these guys's cases, they left for Stalwart Security."

"Does this help our case?" Tanya asked. "I mean, is there anything that would show complicity in the murders?"

"Oh yes, it helps a good bit." I said. "It gives me data on the five guys that the killer went right through to get to Boone and his fiancée. As to actually wanting to murder their client or his fiancée? No, not so much. Okay, Jack, can I disseminate this to the Detectives?"

"The ones with security clearances, yes." said Jack.

Tanya said "I've already put the data in electronic form into the evidence servers, with the clearance requirement on it."

"Okay, thanks." I said.

"I have one question." Tanya said. "Is it possible that the perp was after Tiffany Westgate, and Mr. Boone was collateral damage?"

"Absolutely, and that's Lady Ironside thinking, there." I said. "But I have to think Boone is the focal point. We also have his first fiancée's murder to consider."

"But didn't they think Boone did that himself?" Jack asked.

"Yes, but that doesn't make it so------"

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

It was my Police iPhone ringing, and it was Lieutenant Mary Milton on the other end. "Sir," she said, "I have some new data for you. Can I pull you out of your meeting with the Federales and show it to you?"

"Sure, I'll be right there." I said. After disconnecting, I said "Thanks for the data, Jack. I'll buy you a Double Cheeseburger at the Cop Bar. I've got to go check on something first, though." Jack was happy; double cheeseburgers at the Cop Bar were his all-time favorite food, as his slowly-but-steadily increasing girth showed...

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

I headed over to Mary's office, which was next to Classroom 'E. It had once been Classroom 'F' before the Intel Center was built.

"Whaddya got?" I asked as I knocked and then came on inside Mary's office.

"Mr. Boone's lawyer in Las Vegas contacted me." Mary said. "He had just learned of their deaths and was going to contact us, then saw I'd left messages for him. He was very helpful, and he just sent electronic copies of their wills."

"Both their wills?" I asked. "Tiffany had one?"

"Yes sir." Mary said. "And that's why I pulled you out of that meeting with the Muscones. Take a look at this." She handed me printed copies of the wills.

I could feel my eyes widening in surprise when I saw it. "Tiffany left everything to Mary Carson?"

"Yes sir." Mary said. "Well, it says that if she precedes him in death then he inherits, but if he dies first then her estate goes to Mary Carson. His will left everything to Tiffany, but he made no provision for her preceding him in death, so that's unclear. The attorney said both of them signed their wills and Tiffany signed the pre-nup. I asked if Mary Carson knew she was Tiffany's beneficiary, and he said he didn't know."

"You were right to pull me out of that other meeting." I said. "Get Mary Carson down here to Headquarters for further questioning ASAP. And while you're at it, have them bring Mike Malone in, too. In the meantime, I'm going to call Martha the M.E. and Coroner John Quincy Kelly and let them know before the Coroner's Inquest this afternoon. It suddenly just became imperative to know which one of them died first."

"Why, sir?" Mary asked.

I replied "If Boone died first, Tiffany inherits his fortune... and it all subsequently goes to Mary Carson. If Tiffany died first, even seconds before Boone, then he inherits from her but then died intestate. And if Mary inherits that fortune of over one hundred million dollars... that's one hell of a motive for murder, wouldn't you say?"

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

11:45am, Tuesday, February 9th. Detectives Julia Rodriguez and Joan Laurer went into Interrogation-A. Mary Carson was sitting at the table waiting for them. With her was Mr. Coleman of Lowe, Ball & Lynch, P.C. Mr. Schwartzmann had contacted the firm, which specialized in business law and transactions, to help handle all of the issues of 'Tex' Boone's death, and he was now fulfilling that role by representing Ms. Carson. Officer Colquitt was the Uniformed presence.

"I'm going to read you your rights." said Julia Rodriguez. She did so from the card, then said "Do you understand the rights?"

"Yes." said Mary. "What is this about?"

"We have some follow-up questions about the case." said Julia. "First, how did you meet Tiffany Westgate?"

"Through the staffing agency." Mary said.

"Did she get you your job with Mr. Boone?" Julia asked.

"No, I was already working for him." Mary said.

"Did you introduce them to each other?" Joan Laurer asked.

"No, she was hostessing an event he attended." Mary said.

"How close were you and Tiffany?" Julia asked. "Friends?"

"We became good friends after she began seriously dating Mr. Boone." Mary said. "Mr. Boone had me go with her on shopping sprees, stuff like that. And since we were thrown in together so much, we talked a lot."

"And that's all?" Julia said incisively as she peered at Mary, who became uncomfortable like a watched dog.

"What do you mean?" asked Mary.

"Did you and Tiffany have a sexual relationship?" Joan asked, her voice hard.

Mary wilted at that. "I need to talk with my lawyer." she said. The Detectives got up and went into the anteroom, and Officer Colquitt went into the hallway.

I'd been in the anteroom, watching through the one-way glass. "Y'all are doing great." I said. "You can circle back to her admitting she had oral sex with Boone, and only at the end hit her with the inheritance."

Moments later, the Detectives were called back into the Interrogation Room. The lawyer Mr. Coleman said "My client believes the last question you asked is personal in nature and beyond the scope of your investigation. Therefore, while she wishes to cooperate, ask your questions through me so that I can protect her rights."

Julia looked at him through reptilian eyes. "I do not agree with your premise that the question was beyond the scope of our double murder investigation. But moving on: your client admitted she had oral sex with Mr. Boone. Was it truly consensual? Did she also have sex with his fiancée, Tiffany Westgate?"

The lawyer leaned over and whispered something to Mary Carson, whose face fell. She nodded, then said "Okay, okay. I'll tell you everything."

After a pause, she started: "Nothing I've said to this point has been a lie, but what I didn't say was that Tiffany took an interest in me from the time we met. She was always inviting me to her social outings... the ones she wasn't working... and I became her 'wingman', so to speak. I never quite understood why she chose me as her girlfriend; after all, she was much prettier, much more sophisticated and worldly."

Carson: "She never tried to pull me into her hostessing, but she did come on to me one night when we'd gotten pretty drunk, and we had sex. The next day she apologized for going too far, that she hoped she hadn't ended our friendship. I told her it was okay, I wasn't upset, and all that. And we did have sex again, though sporadically, and usually after I'd been drinking a lot."

Mary: "One night after she'd been dating Mr. Boone for a while, she told me that he wanted to watch her having sex with another woman, and asked if I was willing to be that third person. I thought it might be a good way to stay employed with Mr. Boone, who was already paying me bonuses above my base salary from the staffing agency. So we did it in front of him. He eventually came over and joined us, and he all but forced me to suck his cock."

Mary: "Tiffany kept control of him, though, so the double-decker was as far as he went with me. In the weeks after that he all but forced me to give him blowjobs, but that ended after I complained to Tiffany. She had him whipped, wrapped around her finger, so he backed off. Besides, Tiffany herself was too much for him to handle, sexually."

"And Peter Paulson? And Mike Malone?" asked Joan Laurer.

Mary: "When I met Peter, we began dating. He's good in bed, and fun out of bed. I've never had sex with Mike, and he's pretty boring out of bed. I know he has the hots for me, but I don't feel the same way about him, so I kept him at arms length."

Julia: "And Steve Stewart and George Grayson?"

Mary: "Sometimes, not often but every once in a while when we were on trips with Mr. Boone, Peter and I would be making love on one bed while Steve or George was having sex with Tiffany. Tiffany did like watching me and Peter as much or more than having sex with her own partner, and she also had me swap partners with her so that she could watch me with Steve or George. But that only happened a couple of times.

Julia Rodriguez said "On Sunday night, when you went up to Tiffany's room with her and Peter, did y'all do anything sexual?"

"No, nothing like that. It was all platonic." Mary said. "I'm sure neither Tiffany or Paul would've minded, but we were all afraid Mr. Boone might walk into our party and he'd be angry about it."

Julia asked: "Speaking of that, let's review the timeline of your movements Sunday night. You escorted Tiffany to her room before 9:00pm, and left a little before 10:00pm?"

"Yes, that's about right." confirmed Mary.

"You then went to Peter Paulson's room in his suite on the eighth floor, is that not right?" Julia asked.

"That's right." said Mary.

"Was there a door between her room and either of the next door rooms?"

"No... at least I don't think so." said Mary thoughtfully.

"Just one other question, Ms. Carson." Julia said as she took out a document and put it on the table. "You said you didn't know that Tiffany made a will. She did, and she signed it. And you are the beneficiary of that will."

"What?!" Mary gasped, looking as stunned as she sounded. "She did?" Mr. Coleman took the document and perused it.

"It appears to be legit." said the legal beagle.

"I... I had no idea!" Mary said, almost as a protest. "Tiffany never told me she intended to do that."

"She never discussed it with you?" Julia asked, though more in the tone of a statement.

"No, it never came up, we never talked about it at all." Mary said. "All Tiffany said to me was that Mr. Boone didn't want to sign his will leaving everything to her until she signed the pre-nup that she finally did sign."

"Okay." said Julia. "First of all, the Medical Examiner has not determined fully who died first. If he did, you stand to inherit his entire fortune. And that brings up the second point: it makes you a person of interest in the murders. Will you consent to being ankle-monitored and released, or will we have to book you and have the Court force it in exchange for your release? And no matter what, you're confined to this County while the investigation is ongoing..."

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

As Mary Carson's paperwork and ankle-monitoring was going on, I had Mr. Coleman go into Interrogation-B, which was next to I-A, and then I came in with Lt. Jerome Davis. Mike Malone was sitting at the table. Officer Madison was the Uniformed presence.

After reintroducing ourselves, I read Mike his rights from the card, and he acknowledged his understanding.

"First, Mr. Malone," I said, "what was your assignment before coming here with Mr. Boone? In other words, where were you last week?"

"I was in south Florida." said Mike Malone. "They needed some extra security for Charles Conway, the shipping magnate, and had me go down there. I flew back in time to escort Mr. Boone here."

"May I see your wristwatch, please?" I asked. Malone and the lawyer looked surprised, but he took off his wristwatch and dropped it into my hand. I showed it to Jerome, who nodded.

"Mr. Malone," I said, "your watch is still on Florida time... an hour ahead of our time here. And you said you remembered the time Mr. Boone left the game Sunday night because you looked at your watch. Is it possible you were quoting the wrong time to us?"

"Don't answer that yet." said Mr. Coleman, who then said to me "He may have been incorrect, but that does not mean he was intentionally lying to Police. It's an honest mistake if he told you incorrectly."

"I'll buy that for a dollar." I said. "Especially since his watch is still set an hour ahead."

I photographed the watch with my Police iPhone next to Jerome's iPhone showing the correct time, then gave Mike his watch back as I said: "Okay, that clears up a few things, and also shows your earlier answers were not dependable. So let's move forward. I've obtained your military service records as well as your Secret Service records. You got a '2' in the EO/EEO block on one of them. Why did that happen?"

Up to now Mike had mostly had a blank look or a look of surprise on his face. Now he scowled. "Oh, that. Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. There was an Enlisted man, who was black. I'd recommended to my Captain against sending him to NCO School. The guy was a dirtbag, and there were several others I'd recommended ahead of him, some of whom were also black, by the way."

Mike: "The Captain overrode me, and sent the guy. He also told the Battalion Commander that I didn't want to send the guy because he was black, which was absolutely not true. The Captain tried to formally counsel me, but I pushed back and went to the IG about it. When the Captain was transferred out, they still let him write my OER, and he dinged me for that. The Commander said he'd pull it, but not only did he not pull it, he dinged me on his box score."

I nodded, then said "Okay, I have a question more directly related to this case. You said you saw Mr. Boone go into his room, and then you went into yours next door. By the way, was there a door between the rooms? Were they adjoining?"

"No." said Mike. "Usually Mr. Boone was in a suite with multiple bedrooms, and I'd be in one of the other bedrooms. But this time he wanted to be in that same little room he was in 20 years ago when he won the tournament, and it didn't even have an adjoining doorway to mine."

I said "And you didn't hear anything in Mr. Boone's room when he went into it, nor immediately afterwards? And nothing while in your room next door?"

"No sir, not a thing." Mike said.

"Okay, then." I said. "Mr. Malone, I'm going to have to ask you to give your permission to be ankle-monitored so we can release you on your own recognizance. If you decline, we'll have to arrest you as a material witness if not a person of interest, and have the Court issue an order for you to be ankle-monitored..."

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

"She left with an ankle-monitor on." Julia Rodriguez said as she, Joan Laurer, Lt. Davis, Captain Michaels and I discussed the case in the Main Conference Room. "But I'm kind of wondering if we need to do that for all of the Security team."

"Mike Malone agreed to ankle-monitoring, also." I said. "The rest of them have all been subpoenaed to appear at the Coroner's Inquest. After that, depending on what's said, we'll take them all into custody and give them the same choice we gave her. So... what are your opinions on Mary?"

"Sir," said Julia, "I don't fully understand why she felt she needed to leave Tiffany before Boone got to the room. Maybe she was worried that he would want another threesome or girl-girl show. And I'm also not clear on why Peter Paulson and Mary Carson both went up to his room when hers was right across the hall. It does make more sense if I attach sinister motives to it, that they went upstairs so they didn't hear anything that they (air quotes) 'expected' to happen."

Claire Michaels said "And we do have an explanation of why the killer delayed killing Tiffany until Boone was whacked on the head and died. Mary stands to inherit, but only if Boone died first."

"Sir," said Jerome Davis, "I'm not sure she has it in her to strangle Tiffany, who was taller than her and more than fit enough to ward off her strangulation attack. And while Boone was not tall, it would still be a lot for her to deliver that powerful a blow to Mr. Boone's head."

"Those are all good points." I said. "For me, there are a couple of really nagging issues. First, no matter what the timeline is... and I'm rapidly coming to the belief that the hotel tapes are virtually useless... we have to figure out what happened when Boone first entered his hotel room. Either he found Tiffany unconscious or dead, and the killer hit him on the back of the head right then; orrrr she was alive and well and the attacks occurred sometime later... which makes a surprise 'bottle kill' to his head less of a surprise and more unlikely to have happened. Okay, what about the follow-up with Mike? Jerome, do you think he's a racist?"

"No sir." Jerome said. "You and I talked about this in the past, Commander, that as a black man I am always conscious of how I'm being perceived by white persons that I interact with. And as a Detective I'm better than most at reading people, though nowhere near as good as you. In Mr. Malone's case, he showed no signs of racial thoughts towards me before you asked that question about his EO rating, and he didn't seem to act any differently than he otherwise might have if I weren't in the room or weren't black. He seemed... oblivious about it all."