Cat-Eye Witness (A Klepto Cat Mystery) (26 page)

Damon looked down at the orange soda can then sat back in his chair, resting his good arm over the back of it. He looked around the room, leaned forward and said, “I gave him the grand I got from Garfield. okay?”

Sledge smiled at Damon. “And you kept the money you took from the room? How creative of you.” He then tipped back in his chair and asked, “What time did all this happen?”

“Sheesh, how would I know?”

“You’re wearing a watch. Do you know how to tell time?”

Damon gave Sledge a disgusted look. “Yeah, I know how to tell time. Let’s see, I went up to get the money about an hour later.”

“An hour after you saw your mom put it there?”

“Yeah.”

Sledge made a note and then said, as if talking to himself, “So around twelve-thirty.”

“Yeah, that’s about right—maybe later,” Damon said. He perked up a little as if remembering something, “It was later. It was one-fifteen on my phone when I texted Jesse to come pick up the package.”

“Is that Jesse Salgado?”

“Yeah.” Damon sat up straight and looked from one to the other of the investigators. “How’d you know that, man?”

Sledge ignored the question. He quietly went back through his notes and read, “Time of death between noon and one p.m.”
That’s mighty close to putting Ms. Clampton at the scene at the time of the crime. But if their romp in the hay was brief, she could have been long gone out of there by then,
he thought. He asked, “Was your mother there with Garfield?”

Damon shot a sharp look at Sledge. He shouted, “Hell no! What would she be doing there?” He stared at the detective for a few moments and then began shaking his head slowly from side to side. “No, she was not involved in this. She doesn’t know anything about it, man and that’s the honest truth.”

Hmmm. He seems a little over-the-top touchy about this. Could he be protecting her?
He stared back at Damon and asked, “Okay, so did you ever go back to move the thing…the decoration?”

Damon tightened his lips—looked from one man to the other.

“Well did you?”

“He was paying me, man. I needed the money. I tried to dig it up and move it ’cause he told me to—said there was another thousand in it. But that damn Mexican got in my face and I wasn’t able to do the job.”

“So you assaulted the poor man.”

Damon looked from Sledge to Gonzales in a panic. “No, man. He must have fallen—stumbled or something.”

Sledge stared across the table.

Damon squirmed. “I only pushed him a little.” Then he asked, “He’s okay, ain’t he?”

“No thanks to you, Jackson.” Sledge took a deep breath. “Now, did you go back to the Forster house anytime after that?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure about that? Think hard, Jackson. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth—all of it. Didn’t you try to poison Ms. Jordan’s cat?”

Damon changed his position again, looked down and said, “Yeah. The creep wanted the cat dead.”

“A hit on a cat, huh?” Sledge smiled. “Boy can you stoop low, Jackson. So how much did he pay you to do that?”

“Nothin’ man. The cat didn’t die and I didn’t move the thing. I got no more money…until…”

Sledge perked up. “Until what?”

Damon leaned forward, his eyes darting from Sledge to Gonzales and back again. “Well, Salgado gave me this idea to blackmail the guy—say I would tell everything if he didn’t give me money.” He grimaced and said, “That’s when he tried to kill me with that monster car of his.”

“So you knew he was the one who hit you?”

“I didn’t see much, but I know it was him. The creep.”

“Damon, did it ever occur to you that someone who is capable of murder might also kill you?”

“Not until then, man,” he shouted with fear in his eyes. His demeanor changed and he said with a rather satisfied grin, “But I did get more money outta him.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“I told him I knew he hit me and that I was going to the cops with what I knew unless he paid me another two thou. It worked, too. He gave me the money.”

“How did he give it to you? Where were you?” Sledge knew where the transaction took place. He was just checking his witness.

“In the alley behind the Briar Club…you know. He came there and gave me the money. He wasn’t all that friendly about it, though. Said he’d kill me if I made a peep. I knew he would, too.” He then looked up at Sledge and said, “I’m taking a friggin’ chance here, you know. You morons better cover my butt after all I’ve given you.”

“No problem, Jackson. He’s going away for a long time and you’ll be safe in jail, too.”

“What? You’re arresting me after I came clean and all?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. Just because you told the truth doesn’t mean you didn’t break the law. You’ll have to pay for that. So tell me, why did you get mixed up in this mess in the first place?”

“He said he’d kill me if I didn’t keep doing what he said.” He straightened up in the chair and added, “He was paying me good. I had a lot of debt, man, and people after me. I needed that money.”

“Yeah, Damon, I know about your drug habit. It can get costly. Almost cost you your life, didn’t it, buddy?”

Damon squirmed in his chair and looked down at the soda can. “So how much trouble am I in?”

“I’ll do everything I can for you, Damon. But you’ve made some bad decisions and there will be consequences. I’ll recommend a reduced sentence because you’re cooperating.”

***

“That went well, don’t you think?” Gonzales asked as they walked into their office.

“Yeah, okay,” Sledge replied. “Hey, I have a project for us—wanna meet me back in the interrogation room?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Sledge walked over and picked up a packet from a file on his desk. He then stopped off at the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. He and Gonzales entered the room at about the same time. “What do you have, there?” Gonzales asked.

“Pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yeah, you know, photographs. Here let’s spread them out on the table and see if we can figure a timeline.” Sledge looked out over the display. “Okay now, here’s what we know—or have been told—Byrd died between twelve and one. Jameson was in the room between eleven and eleven-twenty. Clampton arrived around eleven-twenty and Garfield showed up at eleven-twenty-five or eleven-thirty. Jackson claims he was there around one and says Garfield was there then. Did he stay up there all that time or did he go back up there later? The Baxter woman left around one-thirty and she saw Damon talking to someone in an orange Corvette. He pretty much corroborated that story. I’ve separated the pictures according to individual. Here are pictures with Jameson, these show Baxter. This group shows our suspects in the same shots as some of our witnesses.”

Gonzales ran his hand through his sandy-colored hair. “Man, are you thorough. I’ve never worked a case using random photographs like this.”

Sledge continued to lay out small stacks of photos. “Neither have I,” he said. Then he looked up at his partner and added, “But I’ve never had a case quite like this one. Have you?”

“Nope. Can’t say that I have.” He leaned over the table to view the photos more closely. “Okay, so there’s Garfield with two gloves on. He’s talking to some woman. Who is it? Not his wife…”

“Nope. Mrs. Garfield and the kids didn’t arrive until later. That woman he’s talking to is Edie Minsky. She recalls greeting Garfield when he arrived, she thinks around ten-thirty. According to other witnesses, he spent some time schmoozing. You’ll see several pictures of him with different people and he’s wearing the two tan gloves. The pictures all seem to be taken at different places on the property as if he’s the one walking around talking to people.”

“Makes sense. That’s what a schmoozer does, isn’t it?” Gonzales asked.

“Yeah!” Sledge then pointed to another photo and said, “See here he’s wearing just one glove.”

“Did he take it off to shake hands with that guy?” Gonzales asked, purposely playing devil’s advocate.

“Look around in the photo—in all of these photos where he has one bare hand, do you see a glove in his hand or pocket—stuck in his waistband? Besides, it’s the left-hand glove that’s missing. So the shaking-hands theory is blown out of the water.”

“Yeah, good point.”

Sledge continued, “Look here. This is Garfield with Mrs. Baxter in the background—see her there? She’s wearing a red sweater and has her purse over her shoulder. Looks like she’s leaving—or arriving. Can’t get a real good look at Garfield’s hand here, but it appears that his left hand is bare, doesn’t it?”

“I think you’re right. There’s no glove showing above the wrist like there is on the right hand.”

“Is there anything else different about Garfield in this shot?”

Gonzales picked up the photo and stared at it. “He doesn’t look all pumped up like he did in the earlier photos.”

“Yeah, I agree. His demeanor has changed. But I don’t think this is something that would hold up in court, do you?” he said with a chuckle.

“Let’s separate all the photos you have of him without that glove and compare them with the ones with the glove. God, you have a lot of pictures of him. Why is that?” Gonzales asked.

“Well, we got photos from different people who attended the event. I went through them all and printed out only those I thought were significant. I wanted Clampton, Garfield, Baxter, Jameson, Jackson and any shots that looked in any way suspicious.”

“Any of the deceased?” Gonzales wondered.

“No. And that has me puzzled. Where did he come from and why? How did he end up in Mrs. Sheridan’s bedroom?”

Gonzales leaned closer to peer at a group of photos lying on the tabletop. He tapped one of them a couple of times with his fingers. “Oh yes, Garfield is a whole different guy in these pictures without his glove than he was before.” He picked up one photo. “Look at the pompous attitude here and how deflated he looks in these shots without the glove.”

“Yeah,” Sledge said. “And there’s something else I want to check out. Let’s separate the photos of Jackson. I want to see when he has that rag of his and when he doesn’t.”

“Rag?” Gonzales questioned.

“Yeah, that black bandana.” Sledge pointed to a photo. “Here he is in the background of this shot with it tied around his head. He’s some fashionista, isn’t he?” Sledge said with a laugh. He then turned serious. “Wait, here’s one of them both. Garfield’s left hand is bare and Jackson’s rag is gone—his hair’s all bushy and he looks a little shook up to me.”

“Scared, even,” Gonzales said. “Again, playing devil’s advocate, could that bandana be in his pocket?”

“Could be—but what are the odds of that, knowing what we know?”

“Yeah, pretty slim, I guess.” Gonzales looked more closely and said, “Hey, isn’t that Mrs. Luttrell? Didn’t she say she arrived sometime after two? And there’s Jackson without the kerchief. He seems to have lost it sometime after one. He still has it on in this picture where you can see Mrs. Baxter’s arm—isn’t that her arm there? That looks like the sweater she was wearing.” He pointed to another photo showing Mrs. Baxter smiling at the camera.

“Yeah. That’s her.” Sledge looked over at his partner. “Hey, you’re right. Mrs. Baxter left around one-thirty and Mrs. Luttrell arrived after two.” He took a deep breath and said, “Well, like you said, we aren’t going to win a case with photos, but I’m satisfied that both the glove and the black hanky thing went missing sometime between noon and one-thirty and these pictures might just help to prove it.” He began collecting the most incriminating photos and setting them aside before picking up the rest of them. He then stood and said to his partner, “I’m going to have them bring Garfield up. I wanna have a little talk with him. Wanna come?”

Ramon Gonzales put both hands on the table in front of him, pushed himself up to a standing position and grinned over at his partner. “Sure do.”

After the three men were seated in the interrogation room, Sledge said, “All right, Garfield, let’s hear your story and it had better match the one Jackson told us.”

“That little no-good snitch,” Garfield snarled. Suddenly, he looked up, narrowed his eyes at Sledge and said, “Oh no you don’t. You can’t trick me into saying anything.” He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms in front of him and insisted, “I’m not talking.”

“Mr. Garfield, the gig’s up. We know that you bludgeoned Marvin Byrd to death with Margaret Sheridan’s inkwell and that you paid Jackson to hide the evidence.”

Fred Garfield remained silent, his expression changing only slightly as Sledge spoke. “We’ve collected evidence that makes an open-and-shut case against you—including the fact that you tried to kill Damon Jackson to silence him.” Sledge leaned forward, both of his hands on the table. “Oh, Mr. Garfield, what a tangled web we weave when we act in a moment of passion and then try to cover our trail.” He hesitated and sat back in his chair. “Now, I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill Byrd. Isn’t that right, Mr. Garfield…Fred? It just happened. Things got outta control. Maybe you did it in self-defense.”

Garfield stared from Sledge to Gonzales. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before saying, “I want an attorney.”

“That’s what I would suggest.” Sledge motioned for the guard to return the suspect to the holding cell.

A few hours later, Garfield’s attorney called Sledge and told him that his client was ready to talk. The three men re-assembled with the attorney, Josh Lewis, and Garfield told his story: “Yeah, I knew Marvin Byrd. He had been threatening me and my family. I’m afraid I trusted him when he said he’d cut me in on a big deal he was working on. All I had to do was…” he shifted his eyes from Sledge to Lewis. “He wanted me to get the right vote from the council.”

“You mean bribery,” Gonzales stated.

Garfield glanced up at him in disgust and continued. “I couldn’t swing the vote. The fact that I tried my darnedest didn’t matter to Byrd and he went off the deep end blaming me for everything that was going wrong in his life.” His face twisted into a scowl. “I think he snapped or something.”

“So what kind of threats was he making?”

“He called my cell several times every day and said he was going to kill me and my wife and…” he choked up… “that he would kidnap and kill my grandchildren.” He put his head in his hands and sobbed, his body shaking. The men waited for him to collect himself. Finally he sat upright, rubbed the heels of his hand deep into his eye sockets, blinked and continued speaking. “I believed him. I was scared out of my wits for my family.”