The Ensigns of Detection Ch. 05

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cindy's face change a little bit, and I realized why. But that would have to wait. I had an attentive audience right now, and I bore home.

"Doctor, did you have anything to do with the attack on the Graysons?" I asked.

"No, of course not." said Cubbard. "Why would I do that?"

"Not to recover an iPad tablet the perps believed Dr. Grayson had?"

"N... no." said Cubbard. "I have no idea what you're talking about." I could see that he was confused, and he was therefore innocent.

"Good enough." I said. "But as part of all this, it was you that suggested to Dr. Grayson to have him show my dear sister Elizabeth around the labs, and she is a devastatingly observant and quick study. It would be more appropriate to let foxes in the chicken coops, or politicians into a brothel, than allow my sister into a place like that.

"Then you and your wife had the Personnel Department hire James Douglas into the lab, from which he stole the sample that the Police recovered in his possession--"

"Now why would I do that?" asked Cubbard derisively. "I could get a sample like that any time I wanted."

"Not really, the security protocols are too tight, and the security people would throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if they could." I said. "But to your point: Captain Ross, here's where things really start getting good: as Dr. Cubbard was rising to the top, he was smart enough to know that he needed help. And so he consulted... well, a Consultant."

"Do tell." whispered Cindy, her ice-blue eyes gleaming with new understanding. By way of contrast, the looks on Cubbard and his lawyer's faces were ugly to see as I went on:

"With his guidance, Dr. Cubbard, you made it. He arranged for Donovan Donolan to help bring you up, then when Donolan was murdered, your path was further cleared by Board members with whom your Consultant had connections."

"However," I continued, staring into Cubbard's dark eyes, "when you make a Faustian deal with the Devil himself, you know you are going to be paying a heavy, heavy price. The Consultant wanted payback, and it was not your mortal soul he was coveting. He wanted a drug sample, and the process to make it, of that highly refined heroin. He also wanted a couple of other drug processes, for drugs that cause pain, for drugs that render a person helpless to resist interrogation... things BigPharmaCorp has been working on, on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency."

"Well, things were bad enough, Dr. Cubbard." I said. "But when Dr. Laramie Wilkins found out what you were doing in Pennsylvania... stealing other people' research as well as making chemicals that even the CIA would kill for... and they have, I might add... you and your Consultant both knew that you had to eliminate him. So, Doctor... maybe you called Dr. Wilkins, told him to kill himself, or you would kill him and his wife... or, maybe you pulled the trigger of the gun yourself, and he let you in order to save his wife's life."

"No." said Cubbard. "I did not kill him, nor did I have any part in his death."

"So who did?" I asked. "The Consultant himself?"

"Maybe." said Cubbard. "I just know I had nothing to do with it."

"You know who he is, don't you?" I said.

"No." said Cubbard. "And for my wife's life, I don't want to know."

"You do know." I said, then *WHAM!* my hand hit the table, making him jump.

"Say his name!" I yelled.

"I don't know his name!" yelled Cubbard.

After the appropriate awkward silence, Cubbard said "I've never met him personally. Haven't you figured out, Commander, that he always works only through intermediaries? He knew something like this could happen. He knows you're hot on his tail. He's got people working for him that you'd never suspect. I wish to God I could help you take him down, before he murders my wife, but I can't. I don't know enough to help you, Commander."

I noted that the lawyer had not attempted to stop Dr. Cubbard as he pretty much confessed to his crimes. "Tell me this much." I said. "Who was the intermediary?"

Cubbard remained silent, just slowly shaking his head.

"Was it Mrs. Grayson?" I asked. "No... it couldn't be her... oh my God!..."

A moment later, Cindy said "Don?", waking me from my reverie.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" I gasped out. I had said that more to myself than anyone else. I realized that everyone was staring at me. I grabbed a piece of paper, scrawled a note and handed it to Cindy. "Go, get moving!" I said hoarsely. Cindy got moving, practically running out of the Interrogation Room.

"So what do you intend to do with my client?" asked the lawyer. "That was a good fairy tale, but I seriously doubt you can prove very much of it. We'll have that 'lying to police' charge thrown out before you can sneeze at it."

"Are you kidding?" I replied. "Dr. Cubbard's words were a confession. You know it, I know it; hell, it's unanimous." I got up. "Now I suggest that you and your client have a good, serious conversation about his future. I'll be waiting outside..."

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

Lou Stevens had been taken to a holding cell to be fed lunch, and his attorney and Paulina Patterson were having coffee in the breakroom. Martin Nash was taking a potty break.

"Surprisingly good coffee for a Police Headquarters." the lawyer said. Paulina agreed. The lawyer then dropped his voice to a near-whisper.

"This is not an admission of guilt on my client's part," said the attorney, "but hypothetically if he were guilty, what would be the best you could do by way of a deal?"

"Voluntary manslaughter." Paulina said, already well-prepared for this question. "Six years, he's paroled in two with good behavior, and four years of probation. The story will be that he confronted Fulton in Fulton's apartment, it escalated and he managed to get a bat onto the back of Fulton's head. If he doesn't take the deal, it'll be Murder-2, crime of passion, but still a long prison sentence."

"I'll see what I can do." said the attorney.

"Off the record, why the change of heart?" Paulina asked.

"It scares the hell out of me," said the lawyer with surprising frankness, "that the Iron Crowbar is laying off this one. He thinks that Junior Birdman in there can handle it without his needing to come in. So the Iron Crowbar must have something devastating he's holding back if the Little Leaguer can't close the deal."

Paulina hid a grin, realizing that the Iron Crowbar's reputation was now so powerful that lawyers were fearing his not being involved. "That's the offer," she said, "but it's off the table by the end of the day."

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

My police cellphone rang. It was Cindy. "You need to come over." she said simply.

I arrived at the Wilkins home. Patrolman Culver did not ask for my badge number as he saw my face, and I blasted on by him in silence. Going into the house, I went upstairs to the 2nd bedroom, which looked like a child's bedroom. It was a room full of silent people.

Mrs. Abby Wilkins was lying on the bed, dead. Her hands were resting on her belly, and she appeared to be in peaceful repose. On the bedside table was a now empty bottle that had once contained pills.

"She left a note." said Technician Christian Cho, pointing out the document on the small desk on the other side of the room. It read "I am sorry. I cannot go on without Laramie. Abby."

"She's been dead for several hours. I'd estimate time of death around dawn this morning." said Martha the M.E. "It looks like she took a huge dose of sedatives. And an experimental BigPharmaCorp drug, too. It may have been really potent." She pointed at the empty bottle. I put on latex gloves and picked up the bottle, seeing the BigPharmaCorp label on the outside.

"Oh, wait..." I said as I examined the bottle closely. "Does someone have any tweezers?" I was handed tweezers, and, making sure to get it videotaped, I peeled back a corner of the label. Slipping the tweezers between the label and the bottle, I was able to pull out a very thin piece of paper that had been secreted behind the label.

"It was pressed against the bottle, hard to see." I said.

"What does it say?" asked Cindy, seeing my face as I read what was on the paper. I held it up with the tweezers so that she could read it.

It read: "Dear me, Mr. Holmes, dear me."

"Oh my God." Cindy whispered. "So that's why you had me come over here. But we were too late."

"Yes." I said. "Too late. I was culpably slow..."

Part 23 - Solutions and Aftermath

4:30pm, Wednesday, November 24th. I sat in my comfortable 'Command Chair' behind my desk, lost in contemplation. Cindy was sitting on the sofa, watching the Weather Channel. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, looked like it would be a pretty day. Saturday would be overcast for the big game.

I had let Helena go home at lunchtime. So there was a knock on the door and Paulina Patterson and Martin Nash came in. Paulina looked very happy. Nash looked like what passed for being happy for him.

"He confessed." said Paulina. "He took the voluntary manslaughter deal."

"Good!" I said, trying hard to sound happy. "Congratulations, Martin. That was great work."

"Thank you, sir." said Nash. "And thank you for letting me roll with it, though it's always good to have your help."

"So, what did he say?" I asked, inviting them to sit down in the chairs. Cindy turned off the television set.

"He said he was in the Riverside Tavern when he saw Fulton at the bar." said Nash. "He went up to him and Fulton looked right at him, but didn't seem to recognize him. I think that actually bothered Stevens more than anything else... that the guy didn't even remember his face."

"There is one issue, though." said Martin. "He said that at the apartment, he ambushed and hit Fulton, then he just left the body laying there. He threw the bat into a dumpster somewhere, it's likely gone with the trash now. But he said that he did not move the body. So that of course begs the question 'Who did?'."

"And 'Why?'." replied Cindy. Everyone was looking at me.

"I don't know for sure." I said. "But there are a few features of this entire case that stand out to me. The first is the removal of the body. As a 'teachable moment', I realized that Stevens did not move the body himself, nor did he have help, which is why I advised you to not mention it. It would've created a loophole for the lawyer to work with."

"Good call." said Paulina, smiling. I didn't know her smile was in remembrance of what the lawyer had said about me in the breakroom. "The lawyer very likely would not have negotiated the deal if he'd thought about that."

"Probably not." I said. "The second thing is that this man Fulton was able to remain virtually unnoticed for over eight years. New identity, completely off the grid, stayed clean after years of violence and fights."

"I see what you're saying." Cindy said. "How did the barbarian stop acting like a barbarian and start acting like a civilized person for so long?"

"He knew he needed to lay low, or else face a rape charge if he were ever caught again." Paulina said.

"Naw, it's more than that." I replied. "Cindy's right; the leopard does not change his spots. Fulton had something occupying his time, channeling his energies during this time. Not sure what that was, and for the last few years he came to his butcher job every day."

Martin Nash said "You know, that might tie in to his apartment. It was lifeless, as if he had no hobbies, no pastimes, didn't collect anything. It looked like the only thing he did was watch television. But if he wasn't home during the evenings, that would explain some of it."

"Exactly." I said. "The third thing was where they dumped the body... BigPharmaCorp, near the railroad tracks. Now why there?"

"That's why I was thinking that these bozos from the BigPharmaCorp crimes were involved." Cindy said. "Though don't ask me why just yet."

"Yeah, I think you're at least partly right." I said.

"So what is Mrs. Wilkins's suicide about?" asked Paulina. "Is that legit?"

"Oh no, that's part of the overall sequence of events." I said. "I personally think it was murder, though I cannot rule out suicide over... a broken heart." My words made Cindy sit up straight and stare at me.

"Exactly whose broken heart are we discussing?" Cindy asked, her ice blue eyes boring into my gray-blue peepers. I just looked back at her, not needed to say anything out loud. She was onto it, I knew.

"So, Don," Cindy said, "you definitely did not tell Cubbard everything. Why not tell us, now?"

"I... was thinking of waiting until the Thanksgiving Day dinner at The Cabin." I said. "So I can tell everyone at the same time. Joanne almost took off my head with my own crowbar a couple of hours ago..."

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

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26th. It was a beautiful day, fairly cold but sunny and clear. Laura and Phyllis had done much of the preparation. I'd fried two turkeys, and very well I might add, while my mother cooked one the more traditional way: in the oven. Everyone brought other food items, including wine... and beer. The beer would be Todd's doing.

Present were: Myself, Laura, my mother Phyllis, Chief Moynahan, Cindy and Jenna, Molly, Todd and Teresa, Martin Nash and Sandra Speer, Jack Muscone, Tanya Perlman, Pete Feeley's mother Pamela, Barry Oliver, Teddy Parker, Joanne Cummings and Seth Warner, Chief Emeritus Griswold and his wife, Christopher Purvis, Lorena Rose, Grubby Paul, Myron and Mary Milton, Paulina Patterson (sans her estranged hubby), and Julie and Yvonne Newton.

And in a rather big surprise, Daniel and Melina Allgood came, even with Todd there. In addition, of course all the babies were there: Carole, Jim, Ross, Doug, Pete, and little Daniel... watched over by the redoubtable Bowser, who looked resplendent in his collar and (Wildcat) red bandana.

We all ate lunch, and ate a lot of it. The huge feast of food disappeared completely and quickly, and we were all winding down, energy-wise. Some people watched the pro football games on TV, others sat and chatted. I'd watched to see what Todd and Melina would do, but they were very cordial to each other, and Melina talked with Teresa a good bit, as well as with Julie and Yvonne. Daniel talked with me, Chief Moynahan, and Jack Muscone.

Dessert was served, a number of cakes and pies and vanilla ice cream. I need not mention that Carole found the ice cream to be a good compliment for the Girl Scout cookies she was loving. As everyone finished, we all heard the musical sound of a spoon ringing a glass. Cindy Ross was gathering us all, and to hear my solution of the cases.

"Okay, where to begin?" I said, mostly to myself.

"Try 'at the beginning'." said Cindy. Laughter erupted.

"Yeah, I asked for that one, didn't I?" I replied with a sheepish grin. "But it's not really as simple as that. So, let me just say this:

"These cases really began with the death of Emma Washburn." I said. "Her murder at the hands of Cassie Sanderson is not related to these cases, but one of her sexual affairs was with Dr. Robin Grayson. Dr. Grayson had no way of knowing at the time, but a chain of events began that would drag him into this, but would also expose a lot more things."

"The first of those things," I said, "is that the Police made a raid upon an apartment which found a sample of research similar to what Dr. Grayson worked on while in college. This could be considered a coincidence, except that Dr. Eckhart teaches in his seminars that the Universe makes no mistakes and there are no coincidences." Cindy smiled at that one.

I continued: "So we begin what I really thought was a simple follow-up about how a strange chemical was in the hands of a couple of low-life drug pushers. And then the obstacles start popping up all over the place. We go to simply talk to an apartment manager, he gets snotty with us, and the next thing we know he's running for the State Line being pursued by people who should not be interested in him at all."

"Then we see some powerful lawyers for these worthless drug punks; that really got my spidey-sense tingling." I said. "And then some of those apartment buildings burn down in an obvious arson case."

"We also had the attack on Dr. Grayson and his wife." I added. "Though the actual crime was coincidental to the drugs, we found ourselves being ever so surely drawn into a connected web of crimes... a web spun by criminal entities. I've long known of a group of smugglers in the area. The Corrigan Cell's removal did not entirely wipe this group out, and one of its members is my dear sister Elizabeth." My mother shook her head at the mention of her rogue daughter's name. "More on Elizabeth later." I promised.

I went on: "Since Dr. Grayson worked at BigPharmaCorp, and since we had a research drug related to him as well as the attack upon his home and his wife, we naturally went to BigPharmaCorp to see what information we could get. And as the proverbial saying goes: 'that's when the fight started'.

"In my interview with Dr. Wilkins, he was very, very quick to point out that Dr. Grayson's problems involved a woman, who was the late Emma Washburn. And we also got our first glimpse of Dr. Cubbard and his, shall we say, 'concerns' about where our investigations were going. We didn't know we were about to touch upon a huge fraud and racketeering case, and maybe much worse."

"We barely knew what was going on, when all of a sudden the case takes a huge turn, and Dr. Laramie Wilkins comes over all dead." I said, continuing the narrative. "This changed the game completely. And one thing I realized at the crime scene was that, whether he pulled the trigger himself or allowed someone else to do it, Dr. Wilkins allowed himself to be killed.

Hearing the gasps, I said "By that, I mean that he was offered a choice in some way: he could take his own life, sit there and allow someone else to do it, or else things would get much worse. The obvious threat would be to his wife's life, but I'll get back to that in a few minutes."

"It became more apparent to me that Robin Grayson was being manipulated, and that he had no idea of the depths of the waters in which he was swimming... not to mention the alligators swimming with him. So I asked Lt. Croyle to ask him a few questions, and perhaps to mention one of her previous cases. Dr. Grayson got the hint, and he turned himself in this morning. He gave us everything he had in sworn statements, in exchange for immunity from any prosecution, which I was happy to offer."

"The gist of it is that Dr. Tom Cubbard and his wife arranged for Dr. Grayson to show my sister around the research labs of BigPharmaCorp. It is definitely cause and effect that soon afterward James Douglas then was hired into that lab, and further cause and effect that a lab sample from Pennsylvania disappeared before it was properly logged into the inventory at the BigPharmaCorp Town & County Plant sitting by our River in the valley below us."

"Ah, so Douglas got the sample for Elizabeth?" asked Jack Muscone.

"Yes." I said. "But by sheer coincidence, the Town & County Police made a little drug raid on the Douglases, and that refined drug was captured. I would imagine that Elizabeth used words she did not learn in our daddy's household when that happened." That made my mother chuckle.

"Anyway, the sample was not only interdicted, its existence in Police custody meant the cat was about to burst out of the bag and the can of worms opened, to use as many clichés as I can think of. And this is where Cubbard comes in: he had arranged for Dr. Grayson's work with his professor to be purloined and used at the Pennsylvania secret research facility."