Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(35)

“Mom, call the police and tell them what’s going on. Make a report.”

Saturday night, November 15, 1997. Tim Collier was definitely not partying, though he would have liked to if he were on the outside. Instead, he had a lot of time to think in his cell in the West Bloomfield lockup. He kept wondering where Carol was; no one had brought her in. That meant only one thing.

She was free because she’d ratted him out.

The woman he had killed for, the woman he had loved, the woman he had trusted, had ratted him out. While Michigan didn’t have the death penalty, the state legislature had made it law that if you were convicted of first-degree murder—the crime he was charged with—you would get life without parole.

That would be it. Conviction meant no more partying, no more girls, no more anything. Unless he spoke up, he was going down for murder one—and Carol was going to walk.

Tim was nothing if streetwise. He knew better than to talk to a cop without an attorney being present. But he was so angry that Carol had ratted him out that he was willing to waive his right to have an attorney present while he gave his statement to police.

He was standing at the bars to his cell, looking out at the empty cells around him, at the blank, dark concrete walls, up at the fluorescent lighting, when he saw the jailer on duty come in.

Officer Henry Peitz entered the lockup area to assist in moving a female prisoner from cell #5 to cell #4. As he passed cell #1, the occupant, Tim Collier, called out to him.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Peitz nodded.

“Is Carol Giles incarcerated? She is not locked up in here?”

“No, she’s not locked up in jail. Should she be?”

“Yes,” Tim responded immediately. “I’ve done good and bad things in my life,” Tim began philosophically, “but that was a setup and I wasn’t responsible for this crime.”

Peitz patiently explained to Collier that Carol had provided a detailed written statement “that only incriminated you.”

Collier said that he didn’t understand, that the cops had asked him the wrong questions.

“What if something else happened?” Collier said casually. “Can you prove it after someone has been buried, that they’ve been killed?”

Typing up Carol’s second statement took a while. By the time Mike Messina got home, it was midnight. He was just getting into bed when the phone rang. It was Peitz, who told him about the substance of his conversation with Collier.

“Thanks, Henry,” Messina replied, and hung up the phone.

Messina couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about Tim’s question to Peitz: “Can you prove it after someone has been buried, that they’ve been killed?”

Who was he talking about? If he told them and he wasn’t bullshitting, that meant exhumation and autopsy.

But who?

Messina had had the feeling that Carol had left something out. Something still wasn’t adding up right, Messina thought. He got up and went out into the living room and put on the TV.

It was late. All that was on were infomercials. It seemed like every one of them had some Englishman hawking housewares or cleaning solutions or some other junk he didn’t need. It made it easy to think.

Carol was claiming that the motive for the crime was that Nancy stole some drugs from them while they were on vacation. They came back and in revenge for faking a burglary and stealing from them, they tortured and murdered her.

It really bothered him. He’d been a detective over twenty years and in a few more he would retire. Then he wouldn’t have to think about someone’s motives, but now he did. And one thing was clear: you don’t kill a woman and torture her for stealing. Even if it were true, her booty wasn’t the crown jewels, just a small amount of crack. It just wasn’t adding up.

Messina turned off the TV and went into his bedroom. He curled up next to his wife and fell into a restless sleep. Next morning, he got up early and made himself a cup of coffee, extra caffeine.

“Can you prove it after someone has been buried, that they’ve been killed?”

It is common knowledge that murderers usually know their victims. It could be family or friends. So who was close to Carol or Tim or both of them who’s dead and buried and could have been murdered?

Messina turned on the TV to get the news and instead was staring at an infomercial of Richard Simmons exhorting a group of fat women to lose weight. Fat women … fat men … fat man?

Jessie Giles.

Messina called over to the Oakland County lockup and asked that his prisoner, Carol Giles, be transported to West Bloomfield Police Department as soon as possible.

They had a lot more to talk about.

Carol didn’t understand what was happening. Or why.

First they put her in one jail and then she was moved to another.

When she got to headquarters, Helton was already there. He had gotten some sleep and was back. Messina had briefed him. Helton put Carol into an interview room.

“What’s this about?” she asked.

Helton told her that Sergeant Messina needed to talk to her again to clear up some things. He left and a few minutes later, Messina walked in. He was freshly shaved, showered and dressed. He looked more like a businessman coming to work to process some orders than a cop trying to solve a double homicide.

“Morning,” he said, and Carol nodded in reply.