Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(34)

Her luck held. A 9:30 P.M. call prompted L’il Man to say that he would stay at his aunt’s, too. Carol drove back, observing all the speed limits. She’d get the acid and the syringes, put them in the car, get rid of them, and then meet Tim in Flint.

As she came abreast of her house, it looked like a car was coming out of her driveway, but she wasn’t sure. It turned left and then went down a little ways, and then it turned around and went into the driveway again. Instead of going right into her driveway, she kept going, drove past her house, and soon realized that they had turned into her neighbor’s driveway instead.

That was okay, nothing to worry about.

She turned around, came back, and went into her house. She stuck the needles in her coat pocket and grabbed the acid bottle. She came back upstairs and went to her room, where she grabbed the scale that Jessie used to use to weigh the drugs and the remainder of the crack she’d had on hand.

On her way out, she remembered that she had some Henessey cognac and Pepsi in the fridge, so she grabbed that and put the bottles in a brown paper bag. She checked the caller ID and saw that somebody had called from Nancy’s mom’s house. She called Nancy’s mom back.

Phyllis Burke said that they had found Nancy’s body. She’d been murdered. Carol feigned shocked disbelief. Carol heard the beep of call waiting on Burke’s line.

“You answer the phone and I’ll call you tomorrow,” she told Mrs. Burke.

She hung up the phone. Time to get the hell out.

Outside, she got into the Caddy. She started it up and was ready to back up when a car pulled in behind her. Carol thought that maybe it was someone who was lost. She was going to back up toward their lights so she could see who it was, but then they flipped on their lights to show her it was actually a police car.

She turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. Detective Kevin Shanlian identified himself.

He began searching her pockets. He found the needles and the scale. He wanted to know what the bottle in her hand was. He took it and looked at the label. It was hydrochloric acid. He wanted to know if she had any drugs. Scared, not thinking, she replied, “Yes,” and she handed them over. Another cop had come up behind the first one, also in plainclothes.

“Why don’t we go into the house and talk?” said the second cop.

Together, they went into the house.

They tried coaxing her to talk, but Carol wouldn’t bite. She had nothing to say except she had just finished talking to Nancy’s mother.

Shanlian wanted to know what had happened to Nancy. She said she didn’t know. He asked if he searched her house, would he find evidence of a crime, and Carol answered quickly that he wouldn’t.

She gave him permission to search. He didn’t place her under arrest, just escorted her out to his car to talk while the other officers, a few uniforms included, searched her house. She also cooperated by letting him summon the crime lab to do a sweep of the interior.

Soon after, he took her down to the station for questioning, where she began to write out her first statement.





Ten

It had been four hours in a cramped, hot, stuffy interview room, four hours of a sordid tale that implicated Carol Giles directly in the murder of Nancy Billiter. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out she was no longer a witness but a principal.

Messina asked Carol to stand up. When she did, he told her that she was under arrest for the murder of Nancy Billiter.

“But—”

“Just listen. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up your right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney. If you cannot afford one, the court will appoint one for you. Do you understand these rights?”

“Yes,” said Carol.

Messina put the cuffs on her.

“Okay.”

Messina did not want Carol lodged in West Bloomfield, where Collier already was. It was a small jail; it would be too easy for them to talk to each other, to get their stories straight. Instead, he called in another favor and found her accommodations in a cell in the Oakland County Jail. But before she got there, he wanted her to make a few stops first.

Carol had given Messina a lot of information in her statement about where the evidence of the homicide had been secreted in various Dumpsters throughout the county. He sent her out with a few officers to recover that evidence, which they eventually did. Once that was done, she was taken to her cell in the Oakland County Jail.

Prisoners have rights, even when incarcerated. One of those rights is the ability to make phone calls during recreation periods. That night, Carol made a phone call.

At Phyllis Burke’s house, the phone rang. Nancy’s mother picked it up.

“Will you accept a collect phone call from Carol Giles?” the operator asked.

Burke looked down at her caller ID. The digital readout was OAKLAND COUNTY JAIL.

Burke hung up and called her daughter Susan. She told her that Carol was the one and that she should come over right away. Susan didn’t understand, but she came over quickly. When her daughter arrived, Burke said that she thought it was Carol who killed Nancy.

Burke explained that she had just gotten a collect phone call from Nancy. She was in the Oakland County Jail. What would she be doing there—unless she’d killed Nancy?

Susan paused to think.