I was unceremoniously escorted to the same building I had been in earlier that day when I set up the utilities for my new house. Apparently City Hall was on the southern side of the building while the Pomme Valley Police Department occupied the northern half.
I might as well have been cuffed. I had Officer Mike walking directly behind me, with one of his hands on the small of my back. I guess he thought I wouldn’t make a break for it if I knew he was back there. Dave led our procession straight past the big front desk with the obligatory bored-looking cop, opened one of the three doors behind the front desk, and led me into a large, featureless room with a great big mirror on one wall.
I squinted at the large mirror, convinced I’d be able to see someone peering intently at me on the other side. I gave up and looked at the table. Three chairs. One on my side and two on the other.
“Have a seat, Mr. Anderson,” Dave said. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
I pulled the chair out, saw that the cushion had been partially ripped off, and promptly exchanged it for one of the other two on the flip side of the table. I glanced once at the mirror and sank down onto my chair. I crossed my legs and slouched. If they think they were going to play some type of mind game with me in here by keeping me waiting then they were in for a rude awakening. Unlike some, solitude was never something that bothered me. Hell, I’ve waited for over an hour on hold with a big-name computer manufacturer just to get them to troubleshoot a $10 faulty mouse that they were obligated to fix.
Fifteen minutes later the door opened and two men entered. One had solid gray hair, was shorter than I was, but probably outweighed me by a good forty pounds. He was wearing a blue suit with a police badge prominently displayed where most people would put a handkerchief. The second man was younger, about my age I’d guess. He was wearing a brown suit that also had a badge hooked to his pocket. Brown Suit was carrying a cardboard box with a file sitting in plain sight on top of the box.
“What’s this all about?” I demanded, as soon as the two men had taken their seats. “Would either of you care to clue me in?”
The box was placed on the table and the file was placed to the side. The younger man opened the file he had brought in with him and made a point of reading some notes on the first page. The older man looked down at Sherlock and smiled. He had to be the captain. He held his hand out and waited for Sherlock to wander over to give it a cursory sniff.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson,” the younger man said. The tone of his voice suggested his afternoon had been anything but good. “My name is Detective Vance Samuelson. This is Captain Jason Nelson. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us.”
“Like I had a choice,” I responded, folding my arms across my chest and leaning back in my chair. “You people have a helluva way to welcome new residents to this city.”
Detective Samuelson tapped the folder again and nodded.
“That’s right. We see here that you just moved to town. How are you finding things so far?”
I made a point of deliberately glancing around the unremarkable room I was in. I looked over at the huge one-way glass mirror on the wall I was facing.
“Rather shitty, thanks for asking. How’s your day going for you?”
Samuelson looked up from the file.
“You’re not having a good day, Mr. Anderson?”
I silently studied the detective for a few moments, trying to get a feel for the man. Was he trying to show me he had a sense of humor? Was it sarcasm? I turned to the captain.
“Can you tell me why I’m here? Am I being charged with a crime?”
The captain, who had been petting Sherlock, finally looked up at me. His smile melted into a frown.
“Are you familiar with 4th Street Gallery?”
“Not really. Remember the part about me just moving to town?”
“Mm-hmm. Answer the question, please.”
“I’ve heard of it. I know I drove past it, but I’ve never been in it.”
“Mm-hmm. Have you ever met Ms. Zora Lumen?” the captain continued.
Detective Samuelson was scribbling notes like crazy.
“No.”
“What about her assistant, Ms. Debra Jacobs?” Samuelson asked, looking up briefly at me as he spoke.
“No.”
“Have you heard of Emelie Vång?” the detective continued.
I nodded, “Most people with access to the internet have.”
“What about Bengál?” Samuelson prompted.
“Not until earlier today,” I admitted. I immediately saw both the captain and the detective share a look. I decided I should offer a better explanation than that or else I was going to find myself with new living arrangements for the next 20 years or so. “I had heard of her work but have never seen any in person. I had no idea that tiger thing was here in town. I noticed the crime scene tape on the purple door so I asked someone about it earlier. That’s when he told me about what had happened and what had been stolen. He showed me a pic of it on his cell phone.”
“You said you just moved to town today, correct?” Samuelson asked, checking his notes.
“Right.”
“Do you make friends easily?” the captain asked. His face was impassive, neither smiling nor frowning.
“Yeah, sure. What’s that got to do with anything?”
I watched Detective Samuelson scribble more notes on his notepad. After a few seconds of silence I fidgeted in my chair.
“Do you want to know what I ordered at the coffee shop? How about where I went after I finished my bagel? How about a complete list of every place I’ve been to today, would that help?”
Samuelson looked up and nodded.
“Actually, it would.”
“Not until you start sharing some info with me, pal,” I insisted. “I’ve been answering your questions. Willingly. Now it’s time for me to ask a few. What’s happened? What have you found that made you bring me in? I can assure you that I have nothing to do with whatever happened at that gallery.”
Detective Samuelson looked at the captain for his approval. Captain Nelson gave a slight nod of his head. Samuelson removed the lid of the box and reached inside, removing something encased in a heavy clear plastic bag. The word “evidence” was clearly visible across the front of it. He studied the item for a few moments before handing it to me.
“What do you make of this?” the detective asked.
I looked at the thing in the bag. There was no mistaking what it was.
“Looks like a gun.”
“That is a model 627 Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Special,” Detective Samuelson informed me. “It can hold eight bullets. Would you be surprised to learn that only seven are presently in the chamber? It has been fired once.”
“That is our murder weapon,” Captain Nelson smugly announced.
They were baiting me. I wasn’t gonna fall for it.
“Good for you. I’m glad you found it. What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re telling us you’ve never seen this gun before?” Detective Samuelson demanded, growing agitated.
I looked the detective straight in his eyes and didn’t flinch.
“I’ve never seen it before in my life. Why do you ask?”
“Would it surprise you to learn it was registered to a Mrs. Bonnie Davies?” the captain nonchalantly asked me.
My eyebrows shot up. Aunt Bonnie had a gun?
“It would. This is the first I’ve heard of it. I really didn’t know anything about her.”
“You inherited all her things, isn’t that right?” the detective asked, consulting another page inside the file. “You do realize that anything Ms. Davies owned now belongs to you, don’t you?”
Speechless, I glanced down at the gun in my hands. Son of a bitch! They were trying to pin this on me! Don’t they have ways to find out if I fired this damn thing? What was it, something about residue? I s
miled. All those episodes of C.S.I. finally paid off. I looked back at the captain and held out my hands.
“If you think I fired that thing, when I didn’t even know my wife’s great aunt had it, then test me. Run one of those GSR tests. Or I can save you some time and simply tell you what you won’t find any on my hands. Gunshot residue, that is. That’ll prove to you I didn’t fire that thing. Not only that you won’t find my prints on it, either.”
“Don’t you worry about the GSR test,” Detective Samuelson assured me. “We’ll be conducting that next. Do you have any idea where we found this gun?”
“I have spent less than an hour in my newly inherited house since I’ve moved here. I haven’t a clue, pal.”
“In your home.”
“What? When the hell were you in my home?”
“Earlier today.”
Captain Nelson held out a hand for the file. Once the detective had passed it over the captain slid a sheet out and showed it to me. There it was, in black and white. A search warrant. And it even had my name on it.
“Can I ask you where you found it?”
Detective Samuelson flashed a smug smile at me.
“You can ask but I don’t have to answer.”
“What about time of death?” I exclaimed, growing panicky. Sherlock decided he didn’t like either of the two strangers and began growling at them. “When did that poor lady die at the gallery?”
“We won’t know until an autopsy is done, but our M.E. says it was between 10pm and 2am last night.”
My smile returned. Thankfully the captain noticed and instantly frowned.
“Do you want to know what I was doing at that time last night?” Naturally there was no answer but I kept on going anyway. “Good, I’m glad you asked. I was sound asleep. At a hotel. In Ashand. I have the receipt for the room back in my Jeep. Why don’t you give them a call? They can back me up.”
Captain Nelson angrily reached into the box to pull out Exhibit B. This time it was a much smaller plastic bag. I could see some type of green substance in it. The bag was passed to me.
“What is this?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.
“That is a broken wine seal,” the detective answered, waiting to see how I was going to react to this damning piece of evidence.
The problem was, I didn’t know what I was looking at. It looked like broken pieces of plastic. This was a wine seal? Wines have seals?
“Don’t play dumb with me,” the captain angrily insisted. “That’s the seal of Lentari Cellars. You can see the griffin right there.”
“Man, I didn’t even know what the winery was called until earlier today,” I told the two cops. “I heard from two different people that the winery made some great wine. That would suggest that lots of people drink it, so anyone could have dropped that, dontcha think?”
Another plastic bag was produced. This one was large, even larger than the first bag. It had a collection of pamphlets, flyers, and even a hefty hardcover book in it. I caught sight of a familiar name: Emelie Vång.
“We found this in your house,” Detective Samuelson proudly announced. “Explain that.”
I looked at the materials in the bag. All of them were about the “sensational Swedish phenomenon” and her wonderful pieces of glass. I looked up at the detective.
“I would say that Aunt Bonnie was a fan. Come on, guys. This is all circumstantial. You’re grasping at straws. I’m not the one you’re looking for.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the captain assured me. “We saved the best for last.”
I sighed loudly. Sherlock perked up his ears and stared at me.
“Fine. You have something else. Hit me with your best shot.”
The final evidence baggie was produced. It contained a small spiral bound notebook with a dark blue cover.
“We found this buried in your desk,” Detective Samuelson gravely said. “If you didn’t kill Ms. Jacobs then you clearly know who did. And you know who took the tiger. You will start cooperating and you will start now.”
I looked at the notebook with skepticism written all over my face.
“You found a notebook. Big whoop. What’s that got to do with me?”
“Why don’t you open it and find out?” Captain Nelson suggested.
I slid the evidence baggie with the notebook over to me, unsealed the bag, and tipped it upside down, careful not to physically touch it. I then liberated the pen Detective Samuelson was using to flip open the notebook. My heart missed a beat and my stomach sank as I saw what was within. I swallowed nervously.
In handwriting that looked a lot like mine were notes. Notes about the gallery, about the gallery’s security, about back alleyways. There were notes about timetables, equipment lists – ropes, pulleys, night-vision goggles, etc. – and notes about the tiger itself. It was like a burglar’s shopping list.
I cursed silently. It looked as though I had researched how much the tiger was worth, where I might be able to go in order to sell it, and possible places to hide it.
“This isn’t mine,” I promised, looking up. “This may look like my handwriting, but it isn’t. Get an expert in here. You’ll see. I’ve never seen this before in my life.”
“Suddenly you’re a lot more cooperative,” Captain Nelson observed.
“Only because you people think I did this. I didn’t kill Debra Jacobs. I didn’t steal that damn tiger thing. For heaven’s sake, I just moved here!”
“You can drop the pretense,” the captain snapped. “We found your prints on that book.”
“What?! How?” I demanded. “I’ve never seen this book before. I’ve never touched it. I’m being set up!”
“I should also inform you that we are going through your phone and bank records right now,” Detective Samuelson said. “Are you sure you don’t want to come clean before we find what we’re looking for?”
“I have nothing to hide,” I told the two cops. “You can look as long as you want. You’re not going to find a damn thing on me. Why? BECAUSE I DIDN’T DO IT!!” I shouted. “Run your tests. Do a background check on me. You’re the ones who will be apologizing to me once all of this is said and done.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” the captain barked.
The door opened, admitting a skinny young guy in his late teens. He ventured into the room only far enough to be within arm’s reach of the captain. The teenager held out a bundle of papers and waited for Captain Nelson to take them.
“Thank you, Thomas.”
Captain Nelson skimmed the pages, grunted once, and then wordlessly handed them to Detective Samuelson. As one, both cops turned to stare at me.
“What?” I asked, growing even more nervous than I already was. “What do you have there?”
The captain held up the first bundle of papers.
“This is a copy of your bank statements, going back three months. Would you care to explain why there are not one, or two, but three large deposits into your bank account?”
Say what? Three large deposits into my account? Oh. Duh. I know what he’s looking at.
“Insurance payoffs,” I told the captain. “My wife died in a car accident. Between our own personal insurance and my wife’s employer, there were a number of life insurance policies.”
“Is it usual to have more than one policy for just one person?” Captain Nelson asked, not missing a beat.
“Normally, no,” I admitted. “It started with the main policy I purchased for the two of us. Then we were talked into switching to another insurance company, only I never closed out the first policy. It was such a trivial amount each month that I kept it going. Then my wife took a job that also offered life insurance. Trust me, no one thought anything would happen to us.”
The second bundle was plopped down on the table.
“These are phone records,” Samuelson explained. “We pulled records from both
the land line as well as your wireless carrier. Know what we found?”
“I have no idea what went on with the house phone,” I began as I picked up the phone report, “as I’ve only used it once earlier today to answer a call from my friend. As for my cell, it’s going to show some activity, sure. However, unfortunately for you, you’ll see that I haven’t called any local numbers at all.”
“Your cell phone doesn’t interest me,” Captain Nelson exclaimed. He slid the three page copy of my cell phone bill out of the way and instead slid the land line report over. “The house line is another matter. They don’t match up, Mr. Anderson.”
I nodded, “Of course they don’t. They’re two separate phone lines. What’s your point?”
“Your cell phone showed no suspicious activity,” Samuelson reported, “but your land line had several numbers in its recent history. Local numbers.”
“When did Aunt Bonnie die? I asked. “It was, like, three months ago, wasn’t it?” Both cops nodded. “What calls were made and when were they called?”
The captain consulted his notes.
“Four. Two last night and two from earlier today.”
“From my house? But I didn’t get in until this morning!” I protested.
“What time?” Samuelson asked.
“About 9:15am. What time was the first call?”
“A call came through at 7:30pm last night, from a blocked ID.”
“Clearly it wasn’t for me!” I sputtered. “I hadn’t arrived by that time. I was still on the road!”
“So you say,” the captain said. “Do you have any witnesses? Did you stop anywhere in town?”
I thought back to the events of yesterday. Had it really been less than 24 hours since I had arrived in town? I hadn’t stopped for gas, or a bite to eat. I had been driving close to 20 hours straight. I had been anxious to start my new life as quickly as possible so I kept my stops infrequent. However, I ran out of steam around Ashland and stopped for the night.
I shook my head, “Aside from the hotel in Ashland, no. But all you have to do is pull the GPS from my phone. You’ll see that I was nowhere close to the house at that time.”
“So if you didn’t murder Ms. Jacobs then who did?” Detective Samuelson snapped. “Obviously someone did. I personally think that someone is you! Either that or you’re involved with the person that did murder Ms. Jacobs. What do you think, captain? Do we have enough to book him?”
Captain Nelson grunted once, regarded me for a few seconds, and then nodded. He rose from the table and left without a word. Two uniformed officers appeared in the door.
“Zachary Anderson, you are under arrest for the murder of Ms. Debra Jacobs.”
The two officers arrived at my side, bodily lifted me from my chair, and turned me around. Sherlock growled as menacingly as he could, but coming from a corgi, it wasn’t that threatening. Cuffs were slapped on my wrists while Detective Samuelson began his spiel.
“You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer any questions. If you give up that right then anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present. If you can’t afford an attorney then one can be appointed…”
I stared down at Sherlock, who again chose that time to look up at me. His head cocked to the side. I was pretty sure the little corgi was ready to bite a few ankles on my behalf but I certainly didn’t want anything to happen to him because of me.
“What’s going to happen to Sherlock?” I asked as the detective finished reading me my rights.
“Who would you like to call to come get him?” Detective Samuelson asked.
“Let me guess. That’d be my one and only phone call, wouldn’t it?”
Samuelson gave me a smug smile but didn’t say anything.
“I’ll keep him with me. And I’d like to make my phone call, please.”
I had just thought of who I was going to call. For the first time in what felt like a long time, I smiled.