Fiction
It Never Starts With A Body Part 4
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson And Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
After parking across the street from Police Headquarters in downtown Austin, we hurried to the corner and waited for the light to change. It was three twenty in the afternoon, and the day had gotten away from us.
Neither of us was certain how Charlie Alvarez would handle our lack of punctuality, but at this stage in the game, we didn’t want to take chances. Most of the time snooping around on our own usually pissed the Austin police department off.
Since Manny had called in a favor, we really didn’t want to screw this up, but we were thinking it’s entirely possible we already had. After pushing the button on the lamp post another dozen times we stood there, leaning forward in anticipation as if we were runners waiting for the starter's gun.
“This is the longest light I’ve ever seen.”
“Why don’t we just go across? I don’t see a single car coming.”
“And get a ticket for jaywalking Henry? Are you crazy, old man? Police headquarters is right over there.”
“Screw that I’m going. We’re already thirty minutes late. I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it forty.”
“Wait for the light, Henry. I said, wait. Ah, hell.”
After crossing the intersection, we hurried up the steps into the building, stopping at the front desk where several officers were handling phones and computer terminals. One officer looked up, smiled at us, and swiveled his chair in our direction.
“Afternoon. May I help you, folks?”
“Yes, sir. We had an appointment with detective Charles Alvarez at three. We’re running just a bit late.”
“Homicide’s on the third floor. The elevators are right over there. Give your names to the people at the front desk. They’ll get in touch with the detective for you.”
We did as instructed and shortly afterward saw Charlie swing into view in one of the hallways to the left of the reception desk. He raised one arm and stared at his wristwatch, then shook his head, but continued walking toward us.
“Not a good sign Henry.”
“Lead with an apology. You go first.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the woman.”
“That’s bullshit, James.”
“Fine. Hey Charlie, we’re so damned sorry. We were working a few leads and completely lost track of time.”
“Forget about it, Mr. James, we’ll just have to cram a lot of info into a short amount of time. I have a hard stop at four-thirty.”
“More police business I assume? We’re both terribly sorry.”
“No, Ms. Johnson, soccer practice. I’m the designated soccer mom for the day.”
Detective Alvarez spun on his heels and walked in the direction he’d come, and we did our best to stay up with him. He stopped in front of a door marked Interrogation Room 2, opened the door, and stepped in. A bulky manila folder was lying in the center of a table. Charlie sat in one of the four chairs, waiting only long enough for us to take seats opposite him.
“None of the offices were available. I hope you two, don’t mind this.”
“As long as we’re able to leave when we finish, no problem.”
The man chuckled. “Henry, if another detective or I invite you into one of these rooms, it won’t be for jaywalking.”
We looked at one another and then back at the man whose smile broadened.
“That light on the corner is a real bitch, pardon the language, ma’am.”
“No problem, Charlie. It’s probably one of the reasons we were so late.”
“You should have just walked across the street against the light. We all do.”
“Not a word Henry.”
“Fine, Johnson. Okay in the interest of time Charlie, what do you have to show us?”
The detective began sliding large color photographs, which showed in vivid detail images of the corpse of Richard Carlson. Although this wasn’t the first time we’d seen it, our flashlights and the murky darkness had hidden quite a bit of the garish horror we were now seeing.
“The ME puts the time of death between eleven PM Friday night and two-thirty Saturday morning. A single shot to the right temple with a nine-millimeter Glock found at the scene. No registration. I’m betting it’s a ghost gun. Unfortunately, it’s not illegal to build one of these in the state of Texas. It makes our jobs a living hell. We…”
“How can the medical examiner be so precise about the time of death? That’s like only four hours.”
“Well, Ms. Johnson. Shirley Livingston has been doing this for almost twenty years. Plus, there’s this.”
He pulled a cataloged plastic evidence bag out of the folder and slid it across the desk.
“We found this in Carlson’s car.”
“Whoa. Hang on a minute, Charlie. Richard Carlson’s car was at the warehouse? We didn’t see…”
It grew so quiet in the room we were certain Charlie could hear our hearts thudding in panic inside our chests. Charlie leaned back, squinting at us, studying our faces as if determining which of us he was going to take a crack at first. One of us drew the short straw.
“You want to finish that statement, Mr. James?”
“We didn’t see that his car would be that important. Is it?”
Charlie gazed at us for another seemingly endless moment and then nodded.
“More important than you realize. The passenger side window had been shattered. Carlson’s prints were all over the car. That’s to be expected, but we found a partial on one of the shards of glass that doesn’t match. We ran it through AFIS, but the best we came up with was a four-point match. Not nearly enough to I.D.”
“So why if Carlson was going to kill himself would he take the time to smash his car window?”
“Great question Ms. Johnson…”
“Sunny, please.”
“Sunny, take a look at that. It’s a piece of paper one of the techs found underneath the passenger’s seat. There appears to be a name which we can’t make out then an @ sign the address 28311 Commercial Blvd and then a time. Eleven o’clock.”
“The names smudged so bad you can’t read it.”
“Right, but we’re certain it’s Carlson’s handwriting. That puts him at the warehouse at eleven Friday night.”
“Was he meeting someone?”
“The evidence suggests it. We just don’t know who or why. Now here’s where it really starts to get weird. Shirley did a GSR test on Carlson. You two know what a GSR test is?”
“Gunshot residue test.”
“Very good Sunny. Manny said you two were pretty sharp cookies.”
“Really, he said that?”
“Well, actually Henry, he said Sunny was. What he said about you I can’t repeat in mixed company.”
“Wow, just wow. So what about the GSR test?”
“There was no GSR on either of Carlson’s hands.”
“Which means it’s highly unlikely Carlson had the weapon in his hands when the trigger was pulled.”
“Right, Henry. Also, there was no splatter on the gun. If he’d been holding the gun against his right temple, there would be GSR all over his right hand and blood splatter on the pistol and his hand.”
“Besides, a left-handed man wouldn’t hold a gun with his right hand anyway.”
“How do you know Carlson was left-handed Sunny?”
“Look at this photograph Henry. The one with Carlson’s wristwatch.”
“Yeah, so? It’s on his left wrist. The same place I wear mine. I’m right-handed as well.”
“Look closer, old man. Look at the stem of his watch. What direction is pointing?”
“Oh, holy shit. It’s pointing toward his elbow.”
“Uh, what are you two getting at?”
“Charlie, Carlson didn’t wear this watch on his left arm. This watch is a “destro” watch, designed with the stem on the opposite side of the watch case. Usually worn by left-handers on their right wrist.”
“Which means whoever did this wanted it to look like Carlson offed himself.”
“Exactly. Any prints on the watch?”
“Let me look, no it says the watch was dusted and no prints.”
“Damn.”
“Okay, look, I have to go pick up the team. I’ll give you two a call if we find anything else.”
“Don’t suppose we could take that folder with us?”
“Mr. James, this is an ongoing investigation. You know I can’t do that.”
“Just thought I’d ask.”
“Come on, Henry, Let’s go. We’ve got someplace we need to be. Charlie, thanks for all your help.”
“No problem.”
“Where do we have to be?”
“I’ll tell you in the car Henry, now come on.”
Read On — It Never Starts With A Body Part 5
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© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
