Price No Object Ch. 02

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12:40pm. I went into Interrogation-C. Mr. and Mrs. Matheson were sitting at the table. They were middle-aged. He looked very ordinary, 'unexceptional'. She was not unattractive, but not exceptionally pretty. And their personalities would prove to match my initial evaluation of their appearances.

"I'm Police Commander Troy," I said as I sat down opposite them. "I am extremely sorry for your loss, sir, ma'am."

"Can you tell us what happened, Commander?" Mrs. Matheson asked.

"I'll give you what details I know in a moment, ma'am." I said. "First, I need to ask you a few questions. For example, did you know of any problems between your son and his wife?"

"No, none at all." said Mrs. Matheson.

"No," said Mr. Matheson, "but I have to say that we did not talk to Dwayne very much. For years he was very busy at work, and was never home when we called. Last summer he called and said he'd quit that job, and that he and Julie and his old college roommate Jeff were going into business together. But we still did not hear from him a lot. That's just the way he was."

Mrs. Matheson said "I did talk to Julie some, and we exchanged emails. She complained about Dwayne's long hours at work, and she did say how happy she was when he finally quit that job."

I nodded, then said "What about her parents? Did you know them at all?"

"Noooo." said Mr. Matheson. "Julie was a really good, sweet girl, and we were very happy for Dwayne when she accepted his proposal and married him. Her mother was a very nice lady, though I sensed she thought she was better than we were. But Julie's father was a jerk. He was barely polite to us, complained about the Rehearsal Dinner the night before the wedding, and didn't even walk his daughter down the aisle at their wedding."

I said "What about Jeff Cawthorne, Dwayne's college roommate?"

"Oh, he was a charming young fellow." said Mrs. Matheson, a bit enthusiastically. "He came home with Dwayne a few times, and he was the Best Man at the wedding."

Mr. Matheson added: "They... Dwayne and Julie... were going into business with Jeff, which didn't surprise me since they majored in the same thing. And I never heard of any problems with him, nor between them and him."

"Neither did I." said Mrs. Matheson.

I nodded. Then I fished out my Police iPhone and called Teresa. "Bring the Davaloses to the Pastor's Room. I'm bringing the Mathesons there, and I'll talk to them all at the same time."

I had the Mathesons go with me through the anteroom. When we got to the Pastor's Room, Teresa was already there with the Davaloses.

And that's when the fight began.

Literally. Richard Davalos launched himself at Mr. Matheson. "You son of a bitch! Your son killed my daughter!" he yelled as he grabbed Matheson by the neck and began choking him.

*WHAM!*

I drove my bunched fist into Davalos's ribcage as Teresa broke his stranglehold on Matheson. I drove Davalos hard to the floor in a prone position, followed by me affixing handcuffs to his wrists behind his back. Teresa had blown her Police whistle, and four Uniformed Officers flooded the room.

"Officers," said Mr. Matheson as he tried to get his breath back, "I want to press full charges against this man, for assault and battery, or whatever you call it here."

"Done deal." I said. "I'm charging him myself." As four Uniformed Officers rushed in, I told one of them who was Patrolman Johnson: "Take him through full booking. Felony assault and battery!" The Officers forced Davalos out of the room. I noticed Mrs. Davalos was dialing her cellphone.

"I'm calling a lawyer for my husband." she said angrily.

"And well you should." I said darkly. "Commander Croyle, get everyone's statements..."

Part 6 - Getting The Facts Straight

1:30pm, Tuesday, January 5th.

"The building is standing, sir." I said when Chief Moynahan walked in the door. "But that's about all."

"Hoo boy." said the Chief. "Come to my office and give me the details." I did so, with Teresa in tow.

After a brief synopsis of the questioning of the parents and then the assault, I said "I was going to tell both sets of parents that I do not think Dwayne killed Julie, but decided to hold off after the assault. I would imagine that Mr. Matheson will sue Mr. Davalos, so it's probably best for me not to say anything further to them, except to interrogate them again if needed."

"Will it be needed?" the Chief asked. "Are they suspects?"

"Davalos is, sir." I said. "At least as a possible enabler, if what I'm thinking is what has happened."

"And what is that?" asked the Chief.

"Why don't we go on into the Detectives meeting, sir," I suggested, "and I can discuss it with them as well as you, all at once."

We all went to Classroom 'E', where all of the MCD Detectives were, as well as Penny Scott and Christopher Purvis from Intel. Claire Michaels and her 'Lieutenants Three' rounded out the guest list.

"O-kayyyy." said the Chief. "Start us off, Mister Crowbarrrr."

"Yes sir." I said. "Okay, first, we just interviewed the parents of Dwayne and Julie Matheson, and you can review their interviews after this meeting. So let's start with the crime scene and the autopsy. Anything new on them?"

Lt. Davis said "Jeff Cawthorne and Sheila Sullivan said that there was nothing missing nor out of place at the Matheson home, except that there were no papers on the desk, and it had been pretty messy with littered papers in the past. Ms. Sullivan did get emotional when she saw the blood spots on the floor in the main room, but otherwise they held it together pretty well. George, anything else?"

Detective George Newman said "I watched them as they looked around, to see if they would give away something that they knew about secret or hidden safes or anything. They did look up at the extra lights in the master bedroom, but other than that they didn't give themselves away on anything."

I nodded. "Okay, nothing but all the papers taken. Very interesting, wouldn't y'all say?" My Detectives knew I was alerting them to an important cluuuuue, there. "Okay, go on, what's next?"

Lt. Mary Milton said "The autopsy is complete, except for DNA results from what she took under Mrs. Matheson's fingernails. Martha is still keeping it sealed to keep the Press from getting it yet. She noted that it was a small caliber bullet that she recovered against the back of Mrs. Matheson's skull. It was badly deformed, but Ballistics believes they can show it was a.22 WMR round."

"And neither the Mathesons nor Cawthorne nor Sullivan has or had a gun in.22 caliber, that we know of." I said. "All right, that's an important piece of the puzzle. Anything else before we move on to the people."

Penny Scott said "I checked on their permits and firearms. Sheila Sullivan obtained a concealed carry permit over five years ago when she graduated college, and renewed it last summer when it was about to expire. She owns or has owned the two.380 pistols she mentioned, and also a Beretta Model 86 in.380, the kind with the 'tip up' barrel."

Penny: "Jeff Cawthorne, Dwayne Matheson, and Julie Matheson applied for their concealed carry permits the same day, and were awarded and issued them by the Probate Court on the same day this past Summer. Dwayne and Jeff bought their guns immediately afterwards at a gun show at the Fairgrounds here in Town. Dwayne also bought a Taurus revolver in.38 Special caliber, which may have been for Julie's use."

I said: "We never found that Taurus, in her vehicle nor in their house. So maybe the robbers took it?"

Penny Scott replied "Possibly, sir. They emptied her purse onto the dining room table and took her wallet and cellphone, so we're thinking that if her gun was in her purse, they took it, also."

"Did you get any cellphone data?" I asked. "Especially for yesterday?

Penny replied "Let's just say we have some metadata from a warrant issued by the local Magistrate's Court. The Federal Court was very slow to act, and then denied our warrants for more complete data."

Penny: "What we have is that Dwayne Matheson's cell phone called Julie's around lunch yesterday, then again at 1:10pm, then at 2:25pm, which was about the time they got out of their presentation. The codes on the calls showed that the calls immediately went to voicemail, which would mean her phone was totally offline. He tried three more times on the way home. And triangulating from the ping data and the data we downloaded from his GPS in his car, we think he began driving faster and faster with each phone call."

Penny: "Jeff Cawthorne's phone called Sheila Sullivan's at 2:45pm, then did not make another call until about 8:00pm that night, to a number listed as Chinese takeout in northeast Palmyra County, near Sheila's address on her driver's license. And then nothing since, neither incoming nor outgoing."

"That's good and helpful data." I said. "It shows Dwayne Matheson's trajectory that afternoon, and to a lesser extent Jeff Cawthorne's. Okay, what's next?"

Joanne Warner said "Sir, I have something also. I've been checking up on the neighbors, Mrs. Jones and Alicia Tate. I also checked up on Donna Childers, Alicia's boss at the Hospital."

"Okay." I said. "Whaddya got?"

"First, Donna Childers." said Joanne. "Your neighbor Dr. Childers, whose dog Sadie Mae and your dog Bowser have hooked up and made some wonderful puppies, married into the Childers family and then divorced her husband. Donna Childers is a cousin of Dr. Childers's ex-husband, who now works in the Administrative offices of City University."

Joanne: "Donna Childers has been very active in the past with the State Organization of Women, the SOWs, and also volunteers for Malinda Adams's political campaigns. She worked with Stacey Jacobs on Jacobs's 'defund the Police campaigns, which might explain some of her hostility to us."

"Abhorrent, but not illegal, so far." I said.

Joanne: "Dr. Childers is not politically active, at least not that I can tell, but her ex-husband, Donna's cousin. is... sort of. He was sued by the City University chapter of the College Republicans after he attempted to shut them down, calling them 'subversives' and 'insurrection inciters' as his excuse."

Joanne: "He also refused to allow City University Campus Police to provide security when Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro were going to speak at a College-Republican-sponsored lecture, and wouldn't you know it, sir... there was very hostile crowd of protesters blocking the guest speakers from entering the lecture hall, and threatening their physical safety."

Joanne: "The City Police had to intervene and escort everyone out of there, but the Conservative guests's attempt to speak was denied. The College Republicans sued over that, too, but the case was summarily dismissed with prejudice."

"Pun not intended, I'm sure." I replied acidly. "Keep going, if you have more."

Joanne: "Yes sir. I also checked up on Alicia Tate and her husband. Her husband was very active in Jack Lewis's failed campaign for Governor over four years ago, and was active in Eldrick X. Weaver's two losing campaigns for Mayor. Alicia does not have any political ties nor activities that I could find."

Joanne: "However, sir, I did check on what she told us, that she had checked into University Hotel last night instead of coming home. I contacted University Hotel, and they were very cooperative. They sent me their tape of the check-in desk last night, and this is what we have."

She had connected her computer to the dock, and began a video on the screen matrix on the wall. The video showed Alicia checking into the hotel... along with a man. Alicia was in her late twenties, and he appeared to be about ten years older.

"That's her husband, Alvin Tate." I said.

"Yes sir, it is." Joanne said. "But she told us that he was staying in Midtown, which is why she checked into the hotel instead of going home."

"Mary," I said to Lt. Mary Milton, "text the Magistrate Court now and get a warrant to bring in Alicia Tate as a material witness. Once it's issued, send a couple of Uniformed Officers, at least one of them female, to pick her up and bring her to the Station. In the meantime, let's carry on. What's next?"

Mary Milton pointed at Christopher Purvis, our financial guru, who said "Sir, there's not much to tell beyond what we know. I got their Eastern State transcripts. He graduated with a 3.8 GPA, she with a 3.6 GPA, Jeff Cawthorne with a 3.0 GPA. Dwayne saved up a good bit of money by working at School, as a tutor for other students as well as at a pizza restaurant."

"Did he get paid a lot of cash writing papers for the football players?" Roark Coleman asked, laughing at his own joke.

"That's not funny." Theo Washington said, his eyes flashing daggers at Coleman. "I graduated from Eastern State."

"I was just joking, man." Coleman said.

"You just insinuated that my School is cheating!" Theo thundered. "And I'm taking it seriously------"

"Guys!" Jerome Davis interjected. "We've got work to do here. Please, Chris, carry on." I noticed Claire Michaels had been watching the spat, then Jerome's interjection.

"Thank you, sir." said Purvis. "As I was saying, they were able to buy their house with cash, and they were very well paid by BigCommo, so they weren't hurting for money. Her father is pretty wealthy, though there are no financial indications he gave her or them any money."

"I'd say he didn't, from what he said in his interview." said Roark Coleman.

"No doubt." I said, a bit acerbically. "Keep going, Purvis."

"Yes sir." said Purvis, whose eyes had flashed fire at being interrupted so meaninglessly. "So they only had a mortgage after they took one out to start their business. Now to Jeff Cawthorne. He is a lot more interesting."

Purvis said "Cawthorne's parents live east of Acropolis City, almost to the State Line of the next State over. Apparently their gift to him for college graduation was to buy him the condo here in Town after he got his first job, with BigCommo. He bought his Palmyra County townhouse when he got the one-year contract with JGP Settlement Solutions. The curious thing is that the mortgage was guaranteed by a law firm called 'Gibb & Partners, P.C.', based in Acropolis City."

"Whoa!" I said. "That's Richard Davalos's law firm!"

"Yes sir, it is." said Purvis. "Mr. Davalos is still the senior Partner in the Gibb law firm... and there is no 'Gibb' there. I've seen no other connection between them, though."

"Okay, something else to ask Davalos about." I said. "What else about Mr. Cawthorne?"

Purvis: "His contract with Aronis Software Solutions was abruptly ended after just four months. The timing of that is late last Spring, just before Jeff Cawthorne agreed to become part of JDJ Security Software. What makes this interesting is that Aronis has done a lot of work for BigCommo, BigWireless, MegaTech Industries, and the Governments of our State and the State east of us. And their contracts in that State are routinely drawn up by..."

"Gibb & Partners." said Detective Julia Rodriguez. I nodded vigorously in agreement.

"You've made a great connection there, Mr. Purvis." I said. "Let me add to it: Aronis and Cawthorne parted ways right as Dwayne Matheson was in his last months at BigCommo, was working eighteen hour days, and his wife was pressuring him to quit."

"Soooooo, Mister Crowbarrrr," drawled the Chief, "I believe you have some ideas about this case already, and I believe it is time for you to share them with all of usssss."

"YEAH!" came a chorus of Detectives. I looked at them as if they'd fallen out of their trees, and a red crowbar was waved around the table.

"I would infinitely prefer that you guys tell me what's going on." I said. "You've seen all I've seen, you know what I know. So, let's hear your ideas, and then I'll give mine."

Lt. Jerome Davis said "Sir, we the MCD Detectives did a lot of talking as a group as we got the data and looked through it, and we've come to a couple of conclusions. First, we believe the evidence shows that Dwayne Matheson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound by the 9mmP Glock we found at the scene."

Davis: "Second, because of the autopsies showing the huge time disparity in times of death, eyewitnesses at the scene noting big differences in the body temperatures of the two bodies, and there being no sign of the gun used to kill Mrs. Matheson being at the crime scene nor owned by them nor their business partners, we've concluded that Mr. Matheson very likely did not kill his wife."

Davis: "We believe that Julie died that morning, maybe right after Dwayne left for work. Dwayne got home that afternoon, found his wife's body, and committed suicide almost immediately thereafter."

"I entirely agree that he found her dead, became distraught, and subsequently shot himself." I said. "So who killed her? And why?"

Jerome: "At this time, those guys in the 'Morrison Plumbing & Electric' truck are the consensus pick to have killed her. Her time of death is coincident to the time they were observed to be at the house. Why? No data yet."

"True." I said. "And to that point, I'll add that Dwayne and Jeff have an alibi; they were already en route to The City to make their presentation."

"But Sheila doesn't have that alibi." said Claire Michaels. "And we can't exclude her. She may not have been very happy that her fiancé was having a sexual relationship with Mrs. Matheson, even if it's a ménage-à-trois, or whatever the correct term is."

"I'll 'mansplain' and say that 'open marriage' or 'Stag and Vixen' are more appropriately correct terms." I said. "At least that's what my wife tells me." I added, fooling no one present.

"To that end," said Julia Rodriguez, "could Jeff Cawthorne have hired someone to kill her? He knew he'd be out of Town, as would Dwayne, upon whom he'd be relying for their business to succeed."

"But why?" I asked.

"Unrequited love." Julia said. "He even admitted that at one time he thought of getting Julie to break up with Dwayne and be with him, Jeff. He's a smooth talker; a lot of what he told us could be made up, and we have no way of verifying it."

Christopher Purvis added: "And he does appear to have access to the money that would be needed to hire someone to kill Julie, though I have not seen any movement of that amount of money recently."

Teddy Parker said "It would seem to me that he'd have Dwayne killed, if love for Julie is his reason for hiring someone to kill anyone. But I have an issue with that theory in that my observations say he seems to have found happiness with Sheila."

Theo Washington said "Sir, there is another possibility, though everyone else disagrees with me about it. We only have Mrs. Jones word for that van being there at that time. It's possible Mrs. Matheson was killed before the van and its occupants arrived."

"And like I asked before: who answered the door when they got there?" asked Roark Coleman, with great skepticism in his voice.

"The killer." said Theo.

"Mrs. Jones said Julie Matheson answered the door." said Roark Coleman.

Theo replied "I'm not convinced that Mrs. Jones clearly saw Mrs. Matheson at the door."

I said "And you call yourself the 'plodder' of the group, Theo? That is excellent use of your imagination, and it is not outside the realm of possibility. It does not contradict what we know, if it turns out that Mrs. Jones's eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Okay, anyone else?"

Julia said "I'm just trying to find something that fits the facts that we know, including... including..." She went into what would be called a reverie. Everyone stared at her like they would stare at me in my reveries, and then she came out of it.

"Sir," she said, "I just remembered something... the one piece of paper the robbers did not get. The one Carole found."