Cover-up (25 page)

“Did he tell you who was sniffing around?”

“He tell me straight up it Suzanne Shepard. I know exactly who she is because my friend Kim be friends with her. I met her a coupla times.”

“What did Dr. Welch want you to do?”

“First thing he want is, I should find out how much Suzanne know.”

“How did he want you to do that? Ask her?”

“No. He tell me she gots lots of information written down in files that she keeps in her house.”

“He wanted you to break into her apartment?”

“Right.”

“Why didn’t he do it himself? He’s the one who knew what to look for,” Melanie said.

“The man don’t like to get his hands dirty, you feel me? Ben know I’m hooking up with Kim. He know Kim live in that same building, and her husband own it, so he want me to have Kim help get me into Suzanne’s apartment. He don’t want no involvement. He don’t want me mentioning his name. None of that.”

“Did Kim Savitt actually agree to help you burglarize Suzanne’s apartment?” Melanie asked.

Miles sighed and looked over at his lawyer.

“Any chance we can finesse this point?” Siler asked.

Melanie looked at Miles pointedly. “For purposes of today’s interview, yes, but if Kim Savitt is involved, she doesn’t walk. You’ll need to give her up, because I’m not letting her off the hook.”

Custody battle or no, how much slack could Melanie cut the woman? Kim was a drug user. She consorted with serious criminals. And now it looked like she’d conspired to commit a burglary and lied to the feds about it.

“Look, the bitch ratted me out,” he said, “but I won’t tell on no woman.”

“Take the weekend to get comfortable with the idea, Miles, but it’s not negotiable. For now, let’s move on. With or without Kim’s assistance, you knew you were entering Suzanne Shepard’s apartment illegally?”

“For sure. I ain’t playing with you. I know this is a B and E on my record, straight up. I stole shit, too.”

“You mean you took more than just the files Welch asked for?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did you take?”

Miles proceeded to recount the burglarized items so precisely that he might have been reading from the police report Lorraine Shepard had filed. He was being scrupulously truthful.

“What did you do with the proceeds of the robbery?” Melanie asked.

“The money I spent. The jewelry I sold to a fence I know and then I spent what he gave me for it.”

“Did you share the proceeds with Benedict Welch?”

“Hell, no. He just tell me take the files. The other stuff was my idea, my work, so it belong to me.”

“Okay, let’s focus on the files now. Exactly what did you take?” Melanie asked.

“One folder with Ben’s name on it. Another folder with my name on it. Got ’em off a desk in the back bedroom of Suzanne’s place, right in plain sight.”

“That’s what Dr. Welch had told you to take?”

“He say, take anything about him.”

“About him? About Welch himself? Not about you, or the methamphetamine?”

“Naw. He say about him. It was only once I got in there that I saw a file with my name on it. Naturally I took that, too.”

“Did you open the files after you found them?”

“Yes, I did. Once I made it back to my crib, I read ’em cover to cover.”

“And did it appear that Suzanne Shepard was onto your methamphetamine operation?”

“No.”

“
No?
She didn’t know about the meth?”

“That’s what so weird. She ain’t know nothing about it, not as far as I could tell from the files.”

“So what was in the files, then?”

“In mine, it was like, what clients I’m hooking up with, and a rumor Suzanne heard that I was selling Ecstasy last year at a party. Bitch be paying attention, looking for dirt on me.”

A flash of anger in Ortiz’s eyes when he said that made Melanie study him more closely. It was hard to read people sometimes. She generally bought what Miles was saying. That Welch was the instigator. That Miles was small-time. That he didn’t have the motive or even the imagination to have murdered Suzanne. Yet Melanie couldn’t help wondering whether she was getting suckered. It would hardly be the first time a cooperator had lied.

“What did you do with the information in the file about you?” she asked.

“Burned it.”

Melanie looked Miles dead in the eye. “Burning the notes didn’t change what Suzanne knew. She could still have made trouble for you.”

Jerry Siler, who’d been using a pen cap to clean his fingernails, stopped and zeroed in on Miles’s face, listening attentively. But Miles kept his cool.

“If you asking whether I killed her, I didn’t,” Miles said. “Test my DNA and you’ll see. Why would I? Just because she knew I hooked up with a few clients or sold a couple tabs of X? Big deal. That can’t hurt me.”

Miles was so matter-of-fact that Melanie couldn’t help believing him. “What about Dr. Welch?” she asked Miles. “If Suzanne didn’t know about the meth operation, then what did she have on him?”

“His file was interesting,” Ortiz said. “It was a bunch of articles and court transcripts and shit from way back, about a murder. Some girl got raped and stabbed. The strange thing was, the stuff wasn’t about him. Didn’t talk about him at all.”

“The articles didn’t mention Benedict Welch?” Melanie asked.

“No. They caught the guy that did the murder, and it wasn’t Welch. Whoever it was got locked up.”

“What was the killer’s name?”

Miles shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“What about the girl? The victim? What was her name?”

“I don’t remember that either. Just some girl. A stripper.”

“Well, try. This is important,” Melanie said, glancing at Dan and confirming that he was getting all this information down.

“Uh, lemme see. Her name was maybe April. Or Sheri. Something girlie.”

“April or Sheri?” Melanie repeated. “That’s the best you can do?”

“I said, I can’t remember. Maybe it’ll come to me.”

“How long ago did you say this happened?” Melanie asked.

“Like twelve, fifteen years, something like that.”

“Here in New York?”

“No. In California. In L.A. That part I remember.”

“What did you do with the file on Welch after you read it?”

“I gave it to him.”

“Did he say anything about it?”

“He say, good work.”

“No, I mean did he say anything about the newspaper articles or the transcripts? Did he explain what connection he had to that murder?”

“No.”

“Did you ask?”

Miles snorted. “Why I’m gonna mess in his business like that? As far as he concern, I never look inside the file, so he not gonna start explaining some shit about some old murder. Either it ain’t got nothing to do with him, or if it do, he don’t want me to know.”

“Did he look at the file while you were there?”

“Yeah, he checked to make sure I got what he wanted,” Miles said.

“And? Did he seem surprised about what was in there?”

“No. He seemed like that was what he was expecting. He looked through it and he nodded, like.”

“Did he say anything at all about the files, or what was in them?” Melanie asked.

“He just say one thing. He say, Miles, if anybody ask you, none of this ever happened.”

33

A
fter the proffer session,
Melanie left the agents and the defense attorney waiting with Miles Ortiz for the DNA technicians to arrive, and went back her office to get organized. There was a big team meeting scheduled for late that afternoon, and she planned to report on her new favorite suspect. Dr. Benedict Welch was a major player in a serious narcotics conspiracy, and he also might be linked to the rape and murder of a stripper in Los Angeles over a decade earlier. Okay, she had to admit that part was pure speculation. But what else could those newspaper articles that Miles had stolen from Suzanne Shepard’s apartment mean? Welch hadn’t expressed any surprise when he’d examined the contents of Suzanne’s file on him in front of Miles. That told Melanie that he’d expected all along to find out Suzanne was investigating that old crime. He must have had a guilty conscience. She would have to figure out some way to track down those articles despite the scanty information Miles had provided.

For the first time, Melanie was starting to feel like the investigation was on track. With her other suspects—David Harris, Clyde Williams, and even Rockwell Davis and Miles Ortiz—she’d harbored
doubts about whether they were capable of rape and murder. But she didn’t feel that way about Welch, who’d struck her from the start as a classic sex offender. Her suspicions about Welch had seemed to rest on shaky foundations, based on her own personal repulsion at the way he’d touched her. Yes, the complaints she’d seen suggested he’d fondled his patients when they were unconscious. But those allegations hadn’t been substantiated, and didn’t prove he was a cold-blooded killer. But if she could link him to another sex slaying—well, that would be a different story. Then she’d believe that Welch not only had a motive to kill Suzanne Shepard, but the proclivity as well. Melanie wouldn’t forget about her other leads, but she decided to move this one to the top of the list.

The red light on her phone was flashing insistently, reminding her of the disturbing phone call from yesterday, the one where her news conference had been played back at her, set to a sound track of heavy breathing. Melanie ignored the light; she had no time for voice mails now, especially if there was a chance they might upset or distract her. There was too much work to do.

She found Pauline Estrada’s cell number and dialed. The rings had a faraway sound and took a while to go through.

“Hello?” Pauline whispered.

“Pauline, it’s Melanie. We’ve had some big developments in New York today, and I need to hear everything you’ve got on Benedict Welch right away.”

“I can’t talk. I’m in a library and I’m getting dirty looks.”

“Well, go outside. This is urgent.”

After a few minutes of silence and static, Pauline said, “You still there?”

“Yes. What are you doing in a library? You’re still in Tulsa, aren’t you?”

“Of course. I was researching Benedict Welch.”

“Okay, good. I want to hear all about it. Let me give you the thirty-second rundown so you can see how high the stakes are.”

Melanie quickly explained how Julian Hay had arrested Miles, and what Miles had revealed about the meth operation, the burglary, and the contents of the files he’d stolen from Suzanne Shepard’s apartment.

“Benedict Welch is now at the top of my list of suspects,” Melanie concluded.

“There’s only one problem,” Pauline said. “His alibi checks out. At the time of the killing, Welch was stuffing his face in a fancy restaurant with three of his doctor pals from that charity. You know, the one where they do plastic surgery on poor kids?”

“
Damn
. There goes my theory,” Melanie said.

“Hey, just ’cause he has an alibi doesn’t make him innocent,” Pauline said. “Maybe he had an accomplice. Remember, we were saying maybe Miles and Welch were in it together?”

“Based on the debriefing, I just don’t think Miles committed the murder. He came across as sincere. But we’ll know for sure soon enough. Miles is giving a DNA sample even as we speak.”

“Welch is too fishy to be clean. Listen to this. You ready for my big news?” Pauline asked.

“Yes. Tell me.”

“His name isn’t really Benedict Welch! When you said he looked too young for the pedigree information we had on him, you were right on the money. He’s an impostor. The real Dr. Benedict Welch was a well-known doctor here in Tulsa, but he died in a car accident eleven years ago. I have a certified copy of his death certificate.”

“Jesus. If the man we met isn’t Welch, then who is he?” Melanie asked.

“That I haven’t figured out yet.”

“We need to find out, Pauline. I need to know everything there is to know about this guy.”

“I’m working on it, but it’s Saturday. A lot of offices are closed over here. I have to wait till Monday to get into the archives. My as
sumption is, our fake Dr. Welch would’ve filed paperwork requesting replacement copies of the medical license, the diplomas, and whatnot to use in his medical practice in New York. I’m hoping to get his true name that way. The other thought I had was to research the real Welch, the one who died. That’s why I’m at the library.”

“Good idea,” Melanie said. “Our Welch must have known the dead guy. Why else would a criminal from New York assume the name of a dead doctor in Tulsa? It can’t have been random. They must have crossed paths somehow.”

“When I’m researching the real Welch, I’ll look for anybody around him who might have a criminal record and be the right age to be the man we met,” Pauline said.

“Perfect. And while you’re at it, here’s something else to look for.” She told Pauline everything Miles had remembered about the news articles on the murder of the stripper in L.A.

“With no victim’s name or anything? That’s shit to go on,” Pauline said.

“I know, but it’s important, Pauline,” Melanie said. “Like you said, even though Welch has a valid alibi, there are just too many suspicious things about him. And the fact that Suzanne Shepard seems to have connected Welch to an old sex slaying is the most suspicious of all.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Call me as soon as you find anything,” Melanie said, and hung up.

She heard a noise, and jerked her head up to find Dan standing in her doorway.

“You scared me,” she said.

“Sorry. You must be on edge because of that creep.”

“I’ve been too busy to think about him, thankfully. But yes.”

He came in and dropped into her guest chair. She hadn’t noticed in the war room how tired he looked, his blue eyes dark and shadowed, his face drawn.

“Is that where you were last night?” she asked. “Looking for the heavy breather? Because you didn’t answer your phone again. I called three times.”

Melanie heard how clingy and accusatory her words sounded, and she blushed for herself. But she couldn’t help it. The bad times with Steve were recent enough to be an open wound.