Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(8)

“Okay, would one of you please come down to identify Nancy? Perhaps tomorrow?”

Clason volunteered. Shanlian gave her the morgue’s address. The cops left Phyllis Burke’s house at 9:45 P.M. The detectives had one more stop before calling it a night.





Three

Back in Genesee County, the body of Nancy Billiter was still lying where it was first found.

It had lain on the cold, hard ground since it was dumped. Because rigor mortis was gone by the time the body was discovered, the cops knew she had been there since long before dawn. Now, finally, the investigators had finished their death work and the body was ready to be removed.

Sergeant Ives Potrafka had done as Shanlian requested. He had preserved the integrity of the crime scene, making sure it wasn’t contaminated.

At approximately 9:39 P.M., C&M Ambulance personnel carried a stretcher/gurney into the park and put it down next to the body. Gently they transferred it onto the stretcher, then lifted and carried it back out to the lot. When they hit the gravel, they let the legs of the gurney come down and they wheeled it over to their ambulance, where they picked it up and shoved it in.

Sergeant Potrafka followed the body to Hurley Medical Center. They arrived there at 9:55 P.M.

Under the direction of Dr. Grant Williams, the medical examiner, the body was tagged and placed into the hospital’s morgue by registered nurse Roger Gilmore. The autopsy would take place tomorrow morning.

Satisfied that his charge was in safe hands, Potrafka was able to go home and get some sleep. It had been a very long day, he thought, as he drove by the park.

The cops were still there.

Deputy Zudel had been instructed to stand by at the crime scene until the Michigan State lab techs completed clearing their equipment. After that, it would be his job to remove the yellow crime scene tape.

And after that, it would be like nothing had happened.

As Edwards tooled the car through the dark, snow covered streets of West Bloomfield Township, Shanlian pulled the crime scene photograph out of his pocket and examined it again.

Nothing had changed.

Nancy Billiter was still dead. Her face was beaten in, dried blood in a gash across her nose; the left side of her head and temple showed a discolored shade of red; she wore the burgundy T-shirt with the sporty SOUTH BOULEVARD STATION logo across the upper left breast.

“We’re almost there,” said Edwards.

Shanlian stuffed the picture back in his pocket.

“West Bloomfield Township police headquarters are in there,” said Edwards, pointing out a sprawling, lowlying gray building.

They passed the police station and not more than ten seconds later, he pulled over to the curb on the right. Shanlian looked out at a small suburban house recessed from the curb about two hundred feet back, surrounded by oak trees. The mailbox had the address on it and the name GILES.

According to the people they’d interviewed so far, Carol Giles was Nancy’s temporary roommate. Or was it the other way around? Whatever. Maybe Giles knew something that could help them track down Billiter’s killer.

Edwards pulled the car up onto the driveway. Everything was dark. There was no driveway sensor light to light up the flagstone pathway that led up to the front door.

They tried peering inside the living room windows, but the inside drapes were drawn. They could see nothing, not even the outline of lights around the fabric. Maybe everyone was sleeping. They knocked on the door and tried the doorbell, but no one answered. If anyone was inside, they were certainly sound sleepers.

The next step was calling, but they didn’t have the number.

Edwards went to the next-door neighbor, flashed the tin again, and asked the man who answered the door if he had Giles’s number. The guy came back with it a minute later. Back in the car, Shanlian tried the number on his cell phone. No answer. Just as he pressed a button to disconnect, the cops saw headlights turning into the Giles house.

Slowly a Mercury Sable pulled into the driveway and stopped. The headlights dimmed to nothing. Silence. The car door opened and a long leg came out, following by a body wrapped up in a winter coat. It was a woman. She walked to the front door, put a key in the lock, and disappeared inside. They had a reasonable certainty it was Carol Giles.

“Let’s set up a surveillance,” Shanlian suggested.

They couldn’t very well do so without alienating the local cops; they were now operating in West Bloomfield Township. Edwards called the local cops down the block and explained to the desk sergeant what was going on. Minutes later, a marked unit that the sergeant dispatched pulled up to the curb. Edwards and Melki filled the uniforms in on the case and asked them to stay at the curb and provide any necessary assistance.

“Look!” Shanlian interrupted.

The woman had come out of the house and was getting in her car.

“Let’s go,” Shanlian ordered.

Shanlian got behind the wheel, and Edwards and Melki tumbled in. Shanlian raced the car up the driveway. The woman put her car in gear and looked back. Squealing, the brakes bit and the cop car blocked the Sable from getting out. Startled, the beautiful, bespectacled twenty-something woman got out of her car. Edwards identified himself, Shanlian and Melki.

“Are you Carol Giles?” asked Edwards.

She nodded. Shanlian asked her when she had last seen her roommate Nancy Billiter.

“Uh, on Tuesday,” Carol replied.