Chapter 12
Dissembling was one of Horatio's hallmarks so he easily passed off the questioning looks of the lab team as he walked by. After all, he could just as easily been late because of an early morning meeting with the department brass as getting the best night's sleep he had had in a couple of years.
Finding who he wanted, he asked, "What have you got for me, Eric?"
"The tread is a match to Price's car, H. He parked right beside her car that night."
As relaxed as he'd been a moment ago, that was as sad, angry and frustrated the veteran detective was now.
Eric, seeing a flame in his boss' eyes such as he'd rarely seen before, knew enough to remain quiet and to stand back. Horatio Caine could be a dangerous man when encountered in this mood.
Recovering as much composure as he could under the circumstances, Horatio whispered, "Thank you Eric. Excuse me," and stepped out into the elegantly designed lab hallway. Standing under the slanting glass walls, he pulled out his phone. Waiting for an answer, he braced his legs apart, waiting for impact. "Captain Herrero, is Officer Michael Price on duty today?"
"When he comes in, don't send him out. I am sending out two officers to pick up him up and bring him into Miami."
"Yes, I suggest you do call the police legal defense."
"Of course you can follow them in. He'll need all the support he can get."
Folding the phone and putting it in his pocket, he turned at the sound of Calleigh's tuneful voice.
"Horatio, I'm going to interview Linda McGrue again."
The lieutenant's head thrummed a beat.
"To what end, Calleigh?"
"I just don't think she shot Van Meer."
"Her gun did put the bullet into his chest?"
"It did but there were no fingerprints on the gun. Forensics can't put the gun into her hand when it fired that bullet. Before talking with her, I'm going over the gun again. I just feel like the puzzle has a piece missing, is all."
"Keep me posted." He knew Calleigh had given him a second glance before she left, wondering why he sounded distracted.
"Officer, do you know why you are here?"
Price assumed the same defensive position he had at his own station. The lawyer seated next to him showed an immediate counter to the hostile move by leaning forward with his hands on the table.
Just as Price was about to speak, the lawyer put his hand up. "As I understand it, you questioned him before about the death of Mitzi Toler at the Flats Farm location. Am I correct?"
"And we are going to question him about having committed the murder now."
Price exploded into action, rising from his chair. "What the freakin' hell?"
The lawyer put a hand on the officer's arm and settled him back into his chair. "On what evidence?"
If Horatio had the superpower of turning himself into flames when angry, he would have been a blazing torch. As it was, his blue eyes glowed, his shoulders were hunched in front of bunched back muscles that yearned to help arms to reach out and drag the officer from across the table and beat him to a bloody pulp. Instead, he leaned on his hands to keep them in check. "You were careful about leaving evidence that would tell on you, only you missed one thing on the body; a bit of gold thread from the Miami-Dade police officer insignia on your uniform."
The lawyer acted as if he were going to rise to leave. "All officers wear an insignia with the same gold thread. If that's all you have…"
Speaking steadily, staring into Price's glaring brown eyes, Horatio continued. "Thread, like almost anything else, is made in very large amounts at a time and used in very large amounts. Each batch varies slightly even when made at the same factory. When a batch is used up, a new one is made."
"What has this got to do with Price?" The lawyer's voice wasn't sounding nearly so confident.
"In 1994, the company that made the uniform insignias for Miami-Dade knew they were going to go out of business and so only ordered enough thread to make emblems for that year's graduating rookies. The following year, another company was employed."
"You can't tell me that no more thread than what was made for these badges was made, Caine!"
"The rest of the thread was used in many other locations all about a thousand miles or more from Miami.
The thread we found has a particularly refractive index; it glows more in light, looks more gold. No matter how often it is cleaned, no matter how old it gets, how often it is transferred from one uniform to another, the thread retains the same characteristics. A light spectrometer will prove that. Only officers who graduated in 1994 wear that insignia on their arm sleeve."
"Still not enough."
"That's right which is why we went the extra mile, so to speak."
At no time had Horatio's scowl wavered from the stony face in front of him. "When we found the two bodies, you thought you'd cover your ass by ordering a tire change just a little bit early on your vehicle. In spite of tight money, you got away with it. You knew the old tires were tossed at a tire dump and you figured we'd never find them."
The lawyer blustered, "First a thread and now you say you found a tire at a dump of a million or more tires? How gullible do you think we are?"
What happened next nearly had Eric, standing at the door, jumping out of his shoes in alarm.
Horatio pushed the large glass topped table so that it forced the rising lawyer to sit down and the officer who'd been belligerently tilting his chair back to tip to all four legs. At the same time, he roared, "Shut your fucking mouth!"
The seated men, swimming in the tension, glanced at each other.
"One thing you didn't think about is that, to save money, the state demands that on all state vehicle tire changes, the best of the four is used as a spare."
Suddenly Price's face fell. He glanced quickly at the lawyer who looked in nervous expectation at the angry redhead leaning at his client.
"The tread from the spare in your vehicle matches perfectly with the tread mark on the ground found next to Mitzi Toler's car."
Depending on how one looked at it, the minute that followed that remark was either the longest minute in time as all parties looked at the consequences of what had just been said and tried to find ways those could be changed, or, in retrospect, the shortest minute as one man's fate was sealed forever.
"Eric, call in an officer to handcuff this…man." His lip curled at the polite term he had to use.
Once Price's hands were cuffed behind him and his rights were read, Horatio growled, "Now get him out of my sight."
Sally leaned back in her chair. "Either theory could work, Calleigh. Forensic psych is a mushy business at best. Linda is lucky in that she hasn't gone around the bend mentally. She's one of those who was raised in a rough environment. It sounds like her mother had a few mental issues of her own. Linda said she often felt like the character Alice from 'Alice in Wonderland;' she was never sure of the rules, never could tell what would happen next.
"It sounds like she was used by the other girls as a standard of unattractiveness. It often happens in cliques. They use some 'babe in the woods' type as something of a combination joke and reminder of what they would be if not for their lookalike friends. Once again, Linda didn't know the rules but that was normal.
"What seemed to save her was believing that Sean was attracted to her. Her mother still had some sway over her and had impressed her that one reason to go to college was to get a man with a real future. Apparently there was some sort of deadline since there wasn't enough money to pay for such an expensive school for the entire four years.
"So, that, plus the betrayal she was finally recognizing just may have split her off from her memory. Like Alice, it could have been a dream.
She's aware of what she may have done and will probably get over the impulse to use a gun as an answer to making problems go away. She might be able to do a temporary insanity plea."
Calleigh leaned back against Sally's small desk looking down at her. "My sense is that she didn't do it at all. Forensically, we've got nothing on her except for ownership of the gun and motive. On the other hand, we've got no one else with motive."
Sally tented her fingers under her chin then clasped her hands and put the knuckles to her lips, frowning all the while. "I agree, actually. She was there, her statement shows she was angry, yet, I don't see her doing it. I think I've heard Horatio say something like when something doesn't make sense, take something out of the equation, and see what happens." She shrugged. "You might try taking her out of the picture. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you."
An hour later, Calleigh was at Freddy's Firewater Stand. In spite of the owner's protests, she had blocked off the rear fire door and was carefully examining the area around the push handle. Her conversation with Sally had convinced her that she was looking for evidence that either had to irrevocably convict Linda or that would, without doubt, point to someone else.
Late that afternoon, Valera found Calleigh standing at the under lit evidence table staring at the collection of evidence with a satisfied look. "Girl!" she said, handing the lieutenant several envelopes, "You owe me, big time!"
Calleigh looked properly chastised. "How many different contributors on that door handle did you find?"
"Six! Four on one end and two on the other. Most people know to push in the center but if you're in a panic, it's easy to try to shove where the handle meets the holding mechanism and lose a piece of skin. The information about each if them is in those envelopes." She gave Calleigh a look of reproach. "And now, I'm going to crawl home and into a hot tub, surrounded by some lovely candles."
Calleigh's eyes glowed with mischief. "Alone?"
Maxine had already pulled out her phone. "Not if I can help it." She turned on her heel and walked out of earshot.
Half an hour later, Calleigh was making a phone call of her own. An hour after that, as the setting sun cast a golden light down the nearly empty glass filled hallways and reflected eerily from the dark floor, she was facing Houghton Van Meer and his lawyer. Frank was standing off to one side, his small mouth pursed as if to guard any words that might want to leap out.
"Mr. Van Meer, you were at Freddy's Firewater Stand the night your son was murdered."
"What is your evidence, Miss Duquesne?" The lawyer was perhaps Mr. Van Meer's age or close to it only instead of gaunt, his face was pudgy.
"Lieutenant Duquesne." There was no doubt about what title she wanted the lawyer to use to address her. "And my evidence is the epithelials found in the push handle of the emergency door at the back of the club."
"Left when?"
"Unless Mr. Van Meer and several other people all have a habit of frequently using that door which is rigged with an alarm, I'd say he left his skin cells the night his son was shot."
The lawyer leaned into his client and put his hand up to shield his client's lips from view. After two inaudible exchanges, the lawyer sat back. "My client's presence in the club that night is no indicator of guilt. The very notion that he would shoot his own son is revolting." He breathed heavily into his gray walrus style mustache.
Without a pause, Calleigh turned to Houghton Van Meer. "You liked Linda McGrue, didn't you? You thought she was a good match for your son. That was why you said you couldn't remember the names of the other girls. You knew they weren't going to marry your money poor son."
After another brief consult behind a raised hand, the lawyer said, "And look at what misplaced 'liking' did. Ms. McGrue shot his son."
Ignoring the remark, Calleigh continued. "You didn't like that your son liked to act like a player. Maybe he wasn't a player so much as hoping that he could get himself a good catch, one of those rich girls whose family had much more than he would ever have. Yet, to hedge his bets, he wanted to keep Linda around, just in case no one else would take him."
"You were at the club early, weren't you, Mr. Van Meer? You were sitting in one of the corners across the room before the club filled up. You had a very good view of your son in the booth, didn't you? You were glad when you saw Sean and Linda together, when you saw them kiss. Then, you saw the other girls show up after Linda had gone to the powder room. You'd seen Sean and the girls be silly around your pool but Linda had never been around then. This was a new dynamic and you didn't like it. No man in your family was anything but chivalrous to a woman. No man behaved the way Sean did."
The lawyer, a short man with an unfortunately large nose and pointed chin, took on a look of crafty confidence.
"By this time, the club was filling up. Hidden by the moving people, you got closer. Just as Linda came down the hall, the shooting started. You saw Sean rise and push the other girls out of the way so he could get up from the table and escape the bullets. At the same time, you saw Linda pulling a gun from her purse. Before she could shoot, you took the gun from her, shot your own son, and then told Linda to leave adding, 'forget about what happened, just forget about it'."
The lawyer purred softly, "Oh really? And then what happened, Miss…Lieutenant Duquesne?"
"He left by the same route as Linda had, through the fire door. Only, as he left, he left a bit of skin. Skin deteriorates at a specific rate, just like dead bodies Then he wiped the fingerprints from the gun handle and just before he ran down the alley and into the street to his car, he threw the gun at the dumpster. It didn't make it into the dumpster but hit the wall and slid under it. In a way, this was fortunate. You see, most small guns when held in large hands have a bite. It's hard to steady the gun and not have a bit of hide taken by the firing action. If the gun had made it into the dumpster, the skin in that slide might have been contaminated by all the food and rot. Even though the area under the dumpster was slimy, it wasn't deep enough to reach into the area where the skin cells had been caught. That makes two bits of skin we found."
The not so cocky lawyer leaned over to his client. This time the conference took nearly a minute. Finally, the lawyer leaned back to an upright position and said steadfastly, "My client denies any knowledge of that gun or anything that happened at Freddy's Firewater Stand the night his son was killed."
"The law has other ideas about that. Mr. Van Meer, we have a warrant for your arrest. Please stand."
Up to now, the elderly gentleman had been sitting passively, staring down at the table while all of the talk above his generous shock of silver hair went on. Now, before the officers could advance, he sat straight and looked at Calleigh for the first time. "May I say something?"
His lawyer tried to lean over to speak into his client's ear but Mr. Van Meer put up his hand and staid him. "No, my friend, I shall speak now. It is the least I can do."
He turned his attention back to Calleigh. "You see, Lieutenant, my family raised me with a strong sense of honor. My grandfather and grandmother came from Holland. They worked their asses off to earn money in this new land. My grandfather learned carpentry and helped to build some of the older mansions that are around here. My grandmother cooked lunches and sold them to the men my grandfather worked with. My father learned the landscaping business to finish off the houses his father was building. My mother was Cuban and developed her mother-in-law's business into a restaurant. I took it all in and made a fair living if I do say so, myself."
"That does not excuse—" Calleigh began. She was stopped by a raised hand.
"Please, it is important to me to finish. My point in this is to say that honor was the most important thing in my family. Many of the houses my grandfather built stand because he did his craft well. I can still point to trees and bushes my father planted. My grandmother's recipes combined with my mother's still grace the menu of the restaurant I own. My own patios still stand as well as much else of what I did myself because I did it all with honor."
For a brief moment, Mr. Van Meer paused, swallowing hard. "Honor is not just a work ethic but it is how we live, what we live by. We are supposed to have standards. I think I succeeded in passing those qualities to my three older children. In fact, I did it so well, I felt quite confident in their success in life to deny them inheriting anything from me. They would have no time or interest in my life's business if they did get it. So, Sean was the logical choice to carry on for me. Then I began to see Sean for what he was. You see, my father pointed out to me that you can tell how honorable a man is by how he treats the women in his life."
Slowly, ever so slowly, the man in front of Calleigh was aging and withering away. The hollows under his cheekbones drew inward and even his eyes seemed to sink.
"I was so determined to be proud of my son, my heir, I ignored the signs from the beginning. He was troublesome to the nannies I had to hire to care for him. I would explain how he had to respect them and he would say he understood and then do the same things all over. I think he had six in all, most who left in disgust. He did well enough in school so I didn't see the next signs until his college days when he never seemed to have just one girlfriend. I just chalked it up to sewing his wild oats. When he finally started bringing Linda around, I thought, 'ah, this is it. Now he'll settle down.' Well, he didn't. Oh, how I suffered for that poor little girl. I don't think he knew how much I heard of the goings on in that house.
I guess, that night, in the club, I knew I had to do something. You know, it's funny, I didn't know about the other shootings that started it all until the next day. I don't remember hearing the noise. All I know is, I saw Linda coming down the hallway pulling a gun out of her purse. Suddenly, I was there, taking it, seeing Sean pushing his girlfriends out of his way in panic, not helping them and then I knew what had to be done."
"Don't say it, Juan." His lawyer bent down and peered up into his client's face trying to stop him from committing himself to prison or worse.
"No, I did it to save my family's honor! It's an awful thing! No one should have to say I shot my son." Mr. Van Meer wilted and spent, nearly disappeared into his clothing.
Calleigh paused, shocked and satisfied at the same time, before she asked, "For verification that you did indeed commit the crime, I need to ask, was he facing you or did he have his back to you?"
"He was facing me, about five feet away. I think I shot him in the heart."
Calleigh checked the medical examiner's report, word for word, as well as the forensic findings on the clothing. In summary, Sean Van Meer had been shot in the aorta from a distance of five to seven feet.
"I know you think you had a good excuse but I'm afraid the law just doesn't see it that way." Nodding at the officers, she stood back while the old man was handcuffed and led away.
TBC
