The Good, The Bad and The Murderous (Sid Chance Myseries Book 2) Read online

  “Did you get a confession out of him?” Jaz asked as she stripped off her surgical gloves and dropped them in the chair where Valdez had been shot.

  “Hell, he came out a hardened criminal. They don’t give up easy. But we got him by the balls.”

  Grimm’s pompous attitude was wearing thin on Sid. It bordered on déjà vu, a replay of what he had experienced in dealing with his old Lewisville nemesis, Sheriff Zachary. The sheriff had charged him with taking a bribe from a drug dealer, which was ultimately exposed as a frame-up, though it effectively ended his career as police chief. He shared some of the detective’s reservations about Burden, but Grimm hadn’t said anything that would refute Rachel Ransom’s account.

  The overweight detective gave a derisive twist to his lips. “If you two want to stay on the good side of the law, you’d best stop tinkering with a Metro homicide case and go back to chasing scumbag husbands.”

  Sid straightened to his full height, which gave him a few inches on Grimm, though he could hardly compete with the other man’s bulk. He took a step toward the officer, which left them barely a yard apart, and gave him a cold stare.

  “I spent ten years on the right side of the law as chief of police in Lewisville,” he said. “And I’m well acquainted with my rights as a private investigator.”

  When Sid shifted his weight, Grimm bristled. “I don’t give a shit if you were a small town cop or Director of the FBI, Chance. You take one more step and you’ll find yourself in handcuffs.”

  Jaz stepped up beside Sid. “I suggest you be a bit more civilized about this, Detective.” She spoke in a cool but calm voice. “Since you released this store as a crime scene and there’s a closed sign on the door, you have no right to barge in here without a search warrant. You say you know me. You must know I can have a team of lawyers on your back quicker than you can call code five thousand.”

  The Metro Police code for officer in serious danger.

  Grimm stood frozen like a statue of Buddha, if the venerable icon had been about to burst a blood vessel. After a few quick breaths, he blurted, “Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this.”

  And stormed out.

  Chapter 4

  Jaz looked around at Sid and took a deep breath. “I guess I took care of any potential cooperation from the West Precinct.”

  “I don’t think there was ever any potential,” Sid said. “The less I see of that meatball, the happier I’ll be. Don’t worry about it.” He turned toward the back room. “Come in here and look at what I found.”

  He pulled the gloves on again, opened the box, slipped the papers from the manila envelope, and showed them to her.

  Her lively blue eyes widened. “This doesn’t leave much doubt, does it? Some of the names are checked off. I wonder if Rachel Ransom is in here?”

  “Most likely. We need to get this to the FBI.”

  He called a contact he’d made in the local office while working an earlier case and told Jaz someone would be out shortly. She thought about sitting in the executive chair to wait but, realizing what had happened there, changed her mind and perched on the edge of the desk. During the wait, they studied the papers she had found, which provided meager information on the firm. One item was an overdue utility bill. Since he was abandoning the place, Valdez no doubt had little interest in such trivia.

  Sid questioned her on how the racial slur matter currently in the news had affected her.

  “It’s been aggravating,” she said, giving a casual shrug and a slight roll of her head, “but it hasn’t caused any real problems.” It was an understatement, and she realized he probably knew it.

  He gave her a somber look. “Don’t hesitate if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  The door opened and a muscular young man with intense brown eyes walked in. He showed Bureau credentials that identified him as Special Agent Baron Eggers. Sid introduced Jaz and himself and explained that they had been retained to help a young man believed to be falsely accused of murder. He opened the manila envelope and told how he had found the papers.

  Agent Eggers accepted the sheet of names and looked down the list. “Metro didn’t see this?”

  Sid gave his head a confirming shake. “They were only searching for evidence relating to the murder. They already had a description and a suspect.”

  “You’ll probably find Djuan Burden’s grandmother’s name in there,” Jaz said. “She got a Medicare EOB saying this outfit had supplied her an expensive power chair, which she didn’t need and never received.”

  Eggers’ gaze swept the area. “Looks like they’d made their killing and were folding their tent. Medicare’s doing a better job with the new regulations, but some of these fly-by-nighters still slip through the cracks. Know anything about Prime Medical Equipment?”

  Jaz had scooted off the desk. “I found this letter that identifies it as a corporation.”

  “They don’t get as much scrutiny as an individual owner. Was it local?”

  “Listed this address and Omar Valdez as president, Elena Ortiz as secretary-treasurer.”

  “Ortiz lived with him, didn’t she?” Sid asked.

  “According to the news story, she identified the body. It wasn’t clear if they were married or not.”

  “We need to look into whether this shooting was personal with him,” Sid said, “or business related. It looks a lot like a professional hit. The killer could have used a suppressor.”

  “Wasn’t there just one shot fired?” Eggers asked. “A good hit man uses at least two to make sure the job is done right.”

  “Maybe this one wasn’t a seasoned professional,” Jaz said. “Or else he had great confidence.”

  “Well, good luck with it.” Eggers shrugged. “We’ve got enough on our plate. We leave the homicides to Metro unless it involves a federal crime.”

  “What if it turns out to be involved with the Medicare fraud?”

  “Doesn’t appear that way.” He tilted his head and studied Jaz for a moment. “You look awfully familiar. Have you been in the news lately?”

  Sid looked askance. “She’s in the news frequently, but lately it’s been about a spurious charge of racial slurring. Jaz is chairman of Welcome Home Stores.”

  Eggers eyes glowed in recognition. “I’m sorry. I remember now. And you’re the guy who was involved in that pollution case in Cheatham County.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Let’s keep in touch. I’d be interested in anything you turn up about Mr. Valdez or Miz Ortiz and Prime Medical Equipment.”

  “Be happy to,” Sid said. “With your resources, I’d be surprised if we found anything you didn’t.”

  “I don’t like to pass up any possibilities,” Eggers said.

  “Know what you mean. We’d also like to hear of anything you might come across involving Valdez’s murder. Anything that indicates Djuan Burden didn’t do it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The towering oaks and maples that led up the curving driveway from the gate were leafing out, but not enough to mar the impressive view of the two-story French colonial mansion before they reached the crest of the hill. The property was located on Franklin Road not far from the county line. Sid parked in a patterned brick area, and they walked toward the wide veranda that spread across the front of the house and down one side. John Wallace met them at the front door.”

  “Marie wants you to come back to the kitchen, Miss Jasmine,” he said, giving a nod of recognition to Sid. A man of few words, he was large and stocky with muscles that bulged beneath a shirt as white as his short hair. Well-laundered blue jeans extended below the shirt.

  Jaz turned to Sid. “Go on in my office and I’ll check with Marie.”

  Sid entered the bookshelf-lined room Jaques LeMieux had called his hiding place and took a chair beside Jaz’s cluttered desk. He glanced at the two computer monitors, one with a colorful eighteen-wheeler bouncing about the screen. The other showed a log-in box. He picked up a copy of the morni
ng newspaper and checked the other page one stories. He’d already devoured everything about the Djuan Burden case. The main headline chronicled the latest shenanigans of the state legislature, now in session.

  “I’ve already read that malarkey,” Jaz said as she came through the door. “There’s nothing worth reading.”

  “I see they’re still arguing about where you can carry a weapon.”

  “A lot of truckers carry them, so we permit it in our stores. Looks like you can take a gun just about anywhere you want, except in government buildings.”

  “The bad guys will take them anywhere, legal or not.”

  “True.”

  Sid waved at the computer screens. “You going to check out Prime Medical?”

  She took her seat behind the desk. “Marie’s bringing our lunch in here. We’re having a fruit salad and strawberry muffins.”

  “With coffee?”

  “For you.”

  Sid pulled his chair closer to the big screen monitor. “Go for it. We don’t have long before it’ll be time to head for Arnie’s office.”

  She had just opened the Prime Medical Equipment website when Marie walked in, pushing a small cart laden with trays bearing bowls of chopped fresh fruit topped with scoops of orange sherbet. She had coffee for Sid and hot tea for Jaz.

  “You’re a doll, Marie,” Sid said. “It looks delicious.”

  She gave him a cherubic smile. “And you’re a flatterer.”

  “No flattery intended. Just the facts, ma’am.”

  “And thank you for helping my friend, Rachel.”

  “Okay, you two,” Jaz said. “Let’s get busy with this investigation. Thank you, Marie.”

  Sid started on his salad and looked up at the screen as Jaz scrolled down the page. “The website looks legitimate enough,” he said.

  “Enough to fool the casual observer.” She clicked on some links. “A lot of the pages are blank…‘Under construction.’ Just enough official-looking stuff to sound real. I suspect it was copied mostly from somebody else’s site.”

  “What does it say about the company background?”

  “Established a year ago by veteran medical supplier Omar Valdez. Nothing about how he got the title ‘veteran.’”

  “Try him on Google.”

  The Google results page showed a long list of men named Omar Valdez. One was a Canadian boxer, another an actor, a third called “Mr. Cucumber” on his Facebook page. The only entry for Nashville’s Omar Valdez was a link to the newspaper story about his murder. A telephone search gave his address at an apartment on Granny White Pike

  “I’ll delve into him more thoroughly on one of your high-powered search engines when I get back from Bailey, Riddle and Smith,” Jaz said. “Let’s see if the corporation is legitimate.”

  She did a check at the Secretary of State’s site and found Prime Medical Equipment, Inc. listed as chartered earlier in the year.

  “The Apple Realty people said they had been in the building less than six months,” she said.

  “From what I’ve learned on the subject, these scammers only set up shop for a few months. As soon as they collect a nice sum from Medicare, they fold their tents and move on before the investigators get wind of them. Change the name, find a new location. Like Agent Eggers said, if it’s a corporation, I don’t think they get as much scrutiny.” Sid checked his watch. “We’d better finish up here and head downtown.”

  Bailey, Riddle and Smith’s offices occupied a suite on the twentieth floor of a downtown high rise. Sid and Jaz were escorted to the walnut conference room where he had first met Arnie Bailey back in October. The lawyer hired him then to track down a defunct firm responsible for a massive chemical spill, his first major case as a PI. A wall of windows looked out on a block of smaller buildings and the Victorian warehouse district that had been transformed into Nashville’s lively tourist mecca known as “The District.” Across the Cumberland River rose the concrete mass of LP Field, where blue-and-white-clad Tennessee Titans football fans swarmed like colorful bees around an oval-shaped hive on fall Sundays, plus a couple of week nights.

  Arnie Bailey came through the door, a short, chubby figure with an elfin grin. Two younger men followed, one tall and thin, the other more in line with the senior partner’s physique.

  “I hope you guys haven’t put in too much time on this,” Arnie said, sounding apologetic.

  Sid gave him a critical look. “What does that mean?”

  “The boys had a little chat with Djuan Burden at the Metro Jail and looked over what the DA has on him. They think his best course is a plea bargain.”

  Chapter 5

  After getting over the initial shock, Sid stared at the lawyer. “With all due respect, counselor, I think we need to sit down and have our own little chat. It sounds like our opinions are a hundred and eighty degrees apart.”

  “I agree,” Jaz said. “I doubt that your client would go along with it. I’m certain his grandmother wouldn’t.”

  Arnie looked around at his young colleagues. “I think we’d better talk, fellas.”

  He introduced the tall lawyer, who reminded Sid of Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, as Brainerd Hersholt. The smaller man was Hardy Vandenberg. As Sid learned, Hersholt’s movie actor look wasn’t far off course. A Yale Law School graduate, he was a descendant of famed movie actor Jean Hersholt, who was honored annually by the Hersholt Humanitarian Award given at the Oscar ceremonies. A graduate of Duke Law School, Vandenberg was the son of an old friend of Arnie Bailey.

  After they took seats at the table, Vandenberg spoke up. He was an intense young man, outspoken in his beliefs. “The DA is ready to go after Burden on this one. If he can tie that gun from granny’s house to the murder, he’s going to opt for the death penalty.”

  “This doesn’t sound like a capital case to me,” Sid said.

  “A shot through the forehead at close range is pretty damning for a guy already convicted of one murder.”

  “They can’t bring up that conviction in the trial.”

  “True, but you can count on it being tossed out there in the penalty phase.”

  Arnie nodded. “He’s right, Sid.”

  Jaz folded her hands on the table. “I don’t believe they can tie that pistol to Djuan Burden. Mrs. Ransom told us there was no way he could have put that gun where they found it after he got home from Prime Medical Equipment. It had been put away for years.”

  “We’ll see,” Vandenberg said with a skeptical shrug. “They have a witness who’ll testify Burden fled the scene in a major rush. He left a paper on the desk showing his grandmother owed the company several hundred dollars. If this goes to trial, my reading is he’ll face lethal injection.”

  Arnie Bailey leaned his elbows on the table. “Let’s hear what Sid and Miz LeMieux think about the case. They obviously see things differently.”

  “We haven’t had time to get into it in great detail,” Sid said, “but we have some angles to pursue. It appears the store was a front for Medicare fraud. We’re looking into the possibility the murder is tied to the criminal activity.”

  “Is Metro onto that?” Arnie asked.

  “No. Detective Grimm is so certain Djuan is guilty, he’s not about to look anywhere else.”

  Although he had appeared totally disinterested up to this point, Hersholt suddenly came alive. “You talked to him?”

  “Grimm?” Sid said. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

  He recounted their experience at the medical supply store.

  “Since I don’t normally get involved in criminal law, the only time I’ve run into that officer was when he testified in a civil case of mine,” Arnie said. He added with a chuckle, “As I recall, he doesn’t take kindly to having his actions questioned.”

  “Bart Masterson warned us about him,” Jaz said. “But Sid and I don’t take kindly to intimidation. I have trouble keeping my mouth shut.”

  Arnie grinned. “I don’t recall you being reticent about expressing yo
ur views.”

  Sid looked across at the two young lawyers. “I think our next move should be a meeting with your client. We need to hear what he says about all of this.”

  “We can set that up for you with a letter giving our authorization ,” Vandenberg said. “I need to warn you, though, I’ve read a lot of murder trial transcripts and talked to many capital case attorneys. We’ll have to see some incontrovertible evidence before I’ll accept that we can win this case in the courtroom.”

  The Metro Jail contact visitation room appeared as bleak as Djuan Burden’s outlook as he shuffled in from the lockup. It contained only a small table and four chairs. There was video monitoring but no audio, since Sid and Jaz were representing the attorneys. His five-eight frame filled the orange jumpsuit, though he looked shorter with his head leaned forward. Dreadlocks hung limp about his downturned face. He wasn’t handcuffed or shackled. He looked up when Sid spoke.

  “I don’t know if you were told, but we’re private investigators hired by your grandmother to help your lawyers.”

  Burden spoke slowly in a soft, deep voice. “Those lawyers, they looked like they didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t shoot that man.”

  “Some lawyers won’t take a case if they think you’re guilty,” Sid said, though he didn’t know about Hersholt and Vandenberg. “Our job is to find the real killer. You can help us by describing exactly what happened that afternoon.”

  He shook his head, the dreds coiling about like woven snakes. “Man, I’m not sure about anything anymore. I thought I was done with barred cells and prison cots.”

  “This shouldn’t have happened to you,” Jaz said.

  “The Big Man must think I ain’t paid enough for what I did all those years ago. It’ll be like with me the rest of my life.”