FIRST CASE - Novella (McRyan Mystery Series Prequel) (2 page)

“When did you see him last?”

“Last night. He was in like usual after work.”

“Where does he work?” Lich asked.

“At a law firm. Krueger, Ballantine, Montague and Preston.”

Lich looked to Mac, the lawyer turned cop. “Do you know the firm?”

Mac nodded. “Sure. KBMP is a well-known firm with forty, maybe forty-five attorneys, I think. Their offices are here downtown, over in the old Lowry Lewis Building.” Then to the bartender: “Mr. Remer, was Gordon Oliver an attorney there?”

“An associate I think.”

“So he was in last night?” Mac asked.

The bartender nodded.

“What time did he arrive?”

“Maybe nine-thirty, give or take. That was kind of a usual time for him. He’d been working some longer hours as of late he said. He said he was gearing up for trial.”

“What time did he leave the bar last night?”

“He left around midnight, I think. I remembered he gave me a wave on the way out the back and it was no big deal. He’s done it a hundred times I bet.”

“Did he always park out back like that?”

“Yeah,” Remer answered. “We let a few regulars like Gordy do that. A little perk.”

“How was it you found Mr. Oliver this morning then?” Lich asked.

“I went to a little after bar party with some friends last night after we closed at one. My friends dropped me back off at the end of the alley here this morning a little before five. My Jeep is parked back here. I noticed Gordy’s truck was still here which I thought was odd since I saw him leave, and leave alone. I walked over and saw the blood on the driver’s side. I looked inside the truck’s cab, didn’t see him and then got a sick feeling in my stomach. So I called 911. The police got here a few minutes later, popped the truck’s rear bed gate and flip cover and,” Remer’s lip started to tremble, “there he was.”

“I know this is difficult,” Mac said, “but can you think of anyone that would want to hurt Mr. Oliver?”

“No I can’t,” Remer answered. “He was a good guy, especially for a lawyer.”

Mac and Lich both snorted, which Remer noted.

“I know, I know,” Remer said. “Lawyers can be a little full of themselves.”

“Tell me about it,” Lich retorted, looking right at Mac with a toothless smile.

“Whatever,” Mac shot back, shaking his head.

Remer picked up on it, “You a lawyer or something?” he asked Mac. “Or
maybe
you’re married to one.”

“Good pick-up,” Mac answered, remembering that bartenders spend significant amounts of time observing and evaluating people. “I was going to be, but then I didn’t. Wife is a lawyer.”

Remer nodded. “Then you know this is a lawyer bar, right?”

Mac nodded. He’d been in a half-dozen times over the years with his wife and law school classmates.

“Well, we obviously see lots of them in here and, I don’t care how much they spend, some of them are real assholes, arrogant and full of self-importance. But Gordy wasn’t. He was plenty confident for sure, but he was friendly and not a bad looking guy at all. He dressed well and looked the lawyer part, pinstripe suits, nice ties, fancy watch, spent some money on the haircut, all that. He cut a good look and from what I observed, he had an effective line of bullshit for the ladies.”

“Get himself a fair amount of tail, did he?” Lich asked, his mind drifting to one of the few topics he liked to discuss in detail and, as Mac had learned, with great frequency.

Remer smiled. “Gordy left with company plenty of nights. I asked him his secret and he’d just say ‘you gotta use all the tools in the toolbox, Chet.’”

“He was killed outside your bar,” Mac said, getting back on track. “Did anyone in here give him trouble last night?”

“Not last night.”

“How about other nights then?” Mac followed, catching the bartender’s drift.

“Maybe a month ago he got into it pretty good with a guy in the bar. It was heated. We had a couple of off duty cops in here that night and they broke it up before it got physical, but it looked like it could have easily escalated to that level.”

“Do you know why?”

Remer smiled. “Like I said, Gordy was good with the ladies and from what I saw he didn’t really let a diamond ring stand in his way. He almost viewed it as a challenge. I think that night we might have had an angry husband or boyfriend.”

“Do you have a name?” Mac asked, jotting down notes.

“I don’t. I can check but I don’t think we wrote anything up on it.”

“Did you recognize the guy?”

“Not at the time. I probably would if I saw him again because of what happened that night. But he wasn’t a regular, that’s for sure, but whether that was the only time he was in here I don’t know. I know he hasn’t been back and Gordy never mentioned it again. I think he was here with some people from his law firm that night so they might know more about it.”

“Speaking of his work, did he ever mention any trouble there?” Mac inquired.

“No. He worked long hours at that firm like most young lawyers do, but he really seemed to like it. Sometimes he came here with people from the firm, lawyers, secretaries and stuff. I think he was a little
friendly
with a couple of women from the firm or at least it sure seemed like it. But again, he never mentioned any work trouble. He just worked a lot, I know that.”

Lich and Mac spent a few more minutes interviewing Remer and then left him and walked back into the alley to look over the crime scene again. Mac walked back to the blood pool and knelt down to look around when a flash of light to his right caught his eye. Under the front of the left rear tire he saw a small brass plate, maybe an inch by half inch, rectangular in shape. It wasn’t marked as evidence. Mac pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket. He carefully moved around the blood pool and crouched down close to the brass piece and shined his flashlight on it. It looked like there was blood on it. Mac called over a crime scene tech to mark, photograph and bag it.

Mac stood up and then looked back towards the dumpster and stared for a minute. Lich noticed the look.

“What are you thinking, Mac?”

Mac stood up and walked over to the dumpster and crouched down behind it, careful not to touch the dumpster. There was a gap between the back of the dumpster and the wall. He could peek through and see the back door to The Mahogany. The victim still had his wallet, watch and the car was still there.

“Jack, did the vic have his cell phone?”

Coonan shook his head. “Yes.”

This wasn’t a robbery, Mac thought. Robber wouldn’t put the body in the truck, not to mention the fact that the wallet, watch, cell phone and perhaps even the truck would be gone. Mac peeked back through the opening again. “I think our killer crouched down behind the dumpster here, lying in wait for Mr. Oliver. When Oliver passes,” Mac stood up and swung down with his right hand, “the first hit knocks Oliver into the bumper of the truck here. Who knows, there’s a patch of ice here as well so after he’s hit, he stumbles, maybe steps on the patch of ice and then hits his head on the bumper. Then the killer hits him a time or two when he falls to the ground, finishing off what was already probably a finished job because the blow to the head on the bumper is what kills him.”

“With what?” Lich asked. “Hits him with what?”

“I don’t know with what yet,” Mac answered. “There’s the small brass plate our tech is bagging right now that has blood on it, so it might have fallen off of the murder weapon when the killer was swinging it and hitting Oliver with it.”

“So what are you thinking, rook?” Lich asked.

“This wasn’t random. Someone knew Gordon Oliver was here and knew his truck would be parked back here. He was killed by someone who knew him.”

W
hile on a long drive for a hunting trip when he was perhaps fourteen or fifteen, unsure if being a cop was what he wanted in life, Mac McRyan asked his dad how he delivered the news to a family that they had lost a loved one. Simon McRyan was a gregarious, outgoing, larger than life personality who knew how to fill a room with fun and laughter. He could make a funny quip about anything and often, when making a serious point, he would start off with some humorous anecdote to soften the impending lesson. However, for this question from his son, Simon McRyan sat in silence for a number of minutes, looking out the windshield, deep in thought, before he carefully answered the question.

Mac’s dad quietly said that before he ever informed the next of kin, he always tried to put himself in the shoes of the family and how they would want to be told the news and what they would want to hear from the policeman that was giving them the news. The most important thing was to make an investment in the victim. Then his father looked him straight in the eye and said: “Son, this is the most important thing. If you become a cop, if you work homicides, you speak for the dead. That is the job. You become their voice. That is the obligation and it is a heavy one. It is an obligation that not everyone can carry. If you become a cop and you become a detective and you want to work homicides, you will have to ask yourself if you can carry that burden. If you can, then you can talk to the family because then you have that investment in the case. You will say: ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ and it will mean something to the family. They will trust that you will do everything you can to solve it and give them an answer, closure and maybe even a sense of justice.”

Mac thought about those words all the way back to the station. The ride allowed him to clear his mind before he made the call; the phone call that changes everything for a family. Lich had managed to find out that Gordon Oliver was from Wichita, Kansas. His father had died two years ago but he was survived by his mother. She was about to hear the news that she’d lost another man in her life. To make matters worse, Mac would have to deliver the news over the phone which didn’t seem right but was unavoidable.

He did the best he could with Janice Oliver.

Mrs. Oliver hadn’t spoken with her son in a week, other than via a few e-mails. Her son hadn’t mentioned any problems with anyone at work or anyplace else for that matter. He enjoyed his work and seemed happy. Mrs. Oliver didn’t have any information that seemed helpful. Mac told her he would be in touch with more information as it developed and that she should call him if she thought of anything. He took down a list of other family members to contact. After he hung up, he sat in his desk chair for a minute to collect himself. It had been a difficult conversation.

Lich had been sitting at his own desk twenty feet away, keeping a respectful distance while he listened in. When Mac hung up Lich left his desk for the breakroom. He came back with a cup of coffee for himself and his partner and said, “All in all, Mac, you did pretty well there.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s different than when you’re on patrol. In those cases, it was an accident, right?”

Mac nodded.

Lich continued, “In those cases, it’s an unfortunate set of circumstances, and the victim has
died
. It was an accident. But a homicide is different, someone has been
murdered
. It was intentional. The victim is still dead, but a homicide, that just hits people differently. It makes them ask
why
?”

Mac looked down for a moment and then pushed himself out of his desk chair, “Then let’s go figure out
why
Gordon Oliver was murdered.”

* * * * *

Their first stop was Gordon Oliver’s condo, which was a lofted apartment on the far eastern edge of downtown St. Paul, an area called Lowertown. The building, called The Parker Lofts, was a converted warehouse that was subdivided into condos. Oliver had a second floor unit. Mac and Lich, along with two crime scene techs, were let into the unit by the building manager.

The building was a secure building, requiring a key to get in. The front entrance to the apartment, as well as its parking garage, was monitored by video cameras. The manager said he would pull the camera footage to see if anyone unusual entered the building, particularly after midnight.

The loft was approximately one thousand square feet. The floor plan was open, with a kitchen opening into a large open living area that contained a leather sectional couch and easy chair situated around a large area rug and glass rectangular coffee table. The furniture framed a viewing area for the fireplace and a flat screen television. The bedroom and bathroom were positioned down a narrow hallway that ran behind the kitchen.

There was a standard amount of disorganization that evidenced it was occupied by a single, young professional male who worked long hours. The wool blanket on the couch wasn’t folded, there were four different bowls and three glasses in the kitchen sink, there were four pairs of shoes, three dress and one tennis, strewn on the floor mat by the door. The bed in the bedroom was unmade, his toiletries were spread across the vanity in the bathroom and papers were strewn across the small dining table near the kitchen.

“The place looks disorganized, but it doesn’t look like anyone ransacked the place,” Lich observed.

“No it doesn’t, although we need to review the video footage from the front door and garage to be sure,” Mac answered and jotted down a reminder. He perused the loose papers on the small table, a combination of work papers, legal briefs and cases and a few bills, one for cable and another for his cell phone. A red toolbox sat just to the side of the table and Mac smiled, thinking of the bartender’s statement, “You gotta use all the tools in the toolbox.” Of course, that referred to Oliver’s penchant to chase skirts.

Mac and Lich spent time knocking on a few doors but none of Oliver’s neighbors heard anything or were aware of any problems.

T
he Lowry Lewis Building was a five-story classic located in the middle of downtown St. Paul, six blocks from The Mahogany. The interior of the building featured a five-story courtyard with skylight. The offices opened to balconies that overlooked the courtyard. Marble, carved mahogany and oak were the distinctive finishes of the interior of the historic building. The first floor was occupied by a series of small businesses including a jeweler, shoe repair shop, clothier and barber. Krueger, Ballantine, Montague and Preston occupied the second through fifth floors. The receptionist area for the law firm sat at the top of a wide grand staircase that rose majestically to the second floor from the street level entrance.