Progeny (7 page)

“We appreciate it,” Hank said.

She walked us to the end of the hall and turned left. Halfway down the next hall, she opened a door leading outside. We followed her out into a courtyard at the back of the building. To our left were a couple of wicker tables with tan umbrellas shooting up from the centers. A few older folks sat around them, and some staff milled about in the background. She continued past them.

“Here’s Janet up here,” she said. Penny pointed out a thin woman in a lab coat with her back toward us. She stood at the crest of a small hill overlooking a fountain in the property’s pond. The woman’s hands rested on the push handles of a wheelchair.

“Janet?” Penny asked.

The woman turned toward us. She had brown shoulder-length hair. Under her white coat was a light-blue shirt. A smiley-face button was pinned to the pocket of her lab jacket. I put her in her late twenties.

“Yes?” she said.

“These are the two officers that wanted to speak about Mister Pullman.”

We walked up and stopped at the woman, standing behind an old man in the wheelchair. He never turned his head to look at us. His attention was focused on the pond and the water birds pecking for fish.

“Oh, okay,” she said. “Um, Penny, did you want to sit with Walter here? He has another half hour until it’s time for his meds.”

“Sure,” Penny said.

Janet leaned toward the old man. “I’ll see you in a bit, Walter. You watch your birds.”

The man didn’t respond.

Janet left him to Penny’s supervision and approached us. “I’m Janet Crowe, Henry Pullman’s caregiver.”

“Lieutenant Carl Kane,” I said. “This here is Sergeant Hank Rawlings.”

Hank nodded.

She pointed toward one of the unoccupied covered wicker tables a few feet away. “Why don’t we sit and talk,” she said.

We followed her over and took a seat. I slid my notepad and pen from the pocket of my suit jacket.

“Ms. Crowe, what can you tell us about the disappearance of Mr. Pullman? Has this sort of thing happened with him before?”

She shook her head. “Never. He’s never left the property without his daughter. He didn’t have a car to leave in, and we have staff at the front. Someone would have seen him leave if he tried walking out.”

“When was the last time he was accounted for?” Hank asked.

“He was at our nightly Bingo game Wednesday night. That wraps up around five thirty. It couldn’t have been more than a half hour later that I was at his apartment to give him his nightly breathing treatment. I only see him once a day, but I’m always on call in case the residents need something that’s not scheduled.”

“So Wednesday at what? Six o’clock or so?” I asked.

“Around then yes.”

“When did you notice his absence?” I asked.

“Yesterday evening. I went to his place like usual for the breathing treatment around six. When he didn’t answer when I knocked, I got a little worried. He never misses his treatments. I let myself in. His apartment was empty. I asked around. He was at bingo Wednesday and wasn’t seen after. We searched the property, and when we couldn’t find him, we contacted his daughter.”

“Has anyone seen or heard from him since Wednesday night?” I asked.

“No. At breakfast, we gathered all of the residents and asked. No one had.”

“What exactly was Mr. Pullman’s condition that required assisted living?” I asked.

“He was developing Alzheimer’s,” she said. “It was getting too difficult for his daughter and her husband to manage him in their home.”

“And the breathing treatment?” I asked. I tapped the pen on my notebook page, waiting for her response.

“COPD. He had inhalers, but I treated him with a nebulizer nightly.”

“Did anything look out of the ordinary at his apartment?” I asked.

“I didn’t really go over anything. We can go and take a look if you’d like.”

“Please,” I said.

She stood. Hank and I followed her back across the courtyard and into the building. We took the elevator up to level six and made a right down the hall. The way the facility was laid out, I imagined it used to be a hotel before being converted to assisted living.

Janet stopped at room 608 and pulled a ring of keys from her pocket. “This is Henry’s room here,” she said. She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door.

“Dad?” a voice called.

I looked at Janet, who had a look of confusion on her face. She, Hank, and I entered.

A woman in her fifties sat in the living room. She looked at us, her eyes red and puffy. A pile of used tissues lay on the table in front of her.

“Hi, Marion. I didn’t know you were coming,” Janet said.

The woman stood from the couch and walked to us in the entryway. She stared at Hank and me. “Why are you two here?” she asked.

“We’re with the Tampa Police, ma’am. We’re trying to find out what happened with your father.”

“I know who you are, Kane and Rawlings. I read the paper and watch the television. I mean why are you two, specifically, here. You’re homicide guys.” She was quiet for a moment. “Do you think…? Oh my God!” She held her hands over her mouth and stumbled her way to the kitchen table, where she collapsed into one of the chairs. She held her face in her hands and cried.

I walked over to her. “Ma’am, we don’t know what has or has not taken place. We’re just investigating.”

She took her hands from her face and stared me dead in the eye. “Bullshit. They wouldn’t put you two on a missing old man unless there was a reason.”

I let out a breath. The woman would take nothing but straight facts. Trying to beat around the bush with her to calm her down wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I pulled out a seat next to her. Hank sat across from me.

“You’re Mister Pullman’s daughter?” I asked.

“Marion Dean,” she said.

“Marion. I’m going to be as straight as I can with you. You seem like someone who appreciates that sort of thing. I want you to hear everything I say, okay?”

She nodded.

“Yesterday, we found a body. We have no way of knowing if it is your father or not. We will need a DNA sample from the apartment here to rule him out or confirm.”

“A body?” She sniffed. “Robles Park?” Her voice had an air of desperation.

“What do you know about that?” Hank asked.

“It’s been all over the television this morning. Is that why you’re here? Oh my God!” she cried again, burying her face in her hands. “It was my father!” She wept uncontrollably.

I gave her a moment as I looked over at the caregiver, Janet, still standing not much farther in than the entryway. I motioned with my hand that she could leave if she liked. She did.

“Marion,” I asked, “what makes you think that it is, in fact, your father that we found?”

She looked at me with certainty and unimaginable grief on her face. “He was a juror on the Redding trial.”

We requested Marion’s husband to come and pick her up. I told her, as soon as we knew anything concrete, I would be in touch. I also gave her Ed’s number at the medical examiner’s office. I didn’t know if or how she would be able to identify her father, but maybe Ed could speak with her and they could figure something out. I called back to the station and requested a couple more guys, plus someone from our forensic unit. We had motive for the killing if the victim was, in fact, Henry Pullman. We needed to find some evidence to confirm. Hank and I searched over the apartment while Pax gathered a toothbrush Henry Pullman used to clean his dentures, a comb, and a couple dirty glasses from the sink. Using those items, we hoped to get a DNA match.

I met Hank back out in the dining room. “Anything off, Hank?” I asked.

“I haven’t found anything. You?”

I shook my head. “The main bedroom looked undisturbed.” I got Officer Telwan’s attention in the living room. “Telwan, who do you guys have outside?”

“Officer Meechum was walking the lot. I think Rickson was talking with the man at the security gate. Just those two and me here.”

“Call Rickson on your radio and see if we can get a log of comings and goings from the front gate since Wednesday. If someone came in with a car, they would have had to pass the guard out there.”

“Got it, Lieutenant.”

“What’s our next step?” Hank asked.

“I don’t think he was taken from the apartment here. Let’s check back with Janet Crowe and see if she knows the route he takes from the bingo hall back to his room. Maybe we can find something along the way.”

“Sure,” Hank said.

“Telwan, do you want to hang out with Pax here until he’s through? We’ll get this place locked up after.”

He nodded.

Hank and I headed back to the reception desk to have Janet Crowe paged. The woman behind the front counter told us it would take a minute, so we waited on Janet’s return.

“Think our victim is this Pullman?” Hank asked.

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Why wait thirty years to attack a member of the jury? Twenty some years after Redding is dead?”

“If that’s what we’re dealing with, someone is doing this to honor Redding.”

Janet came down the hall and stopped when she got to Hank and me. “How is Marion?” she asked.

“We had her husband pick her up.”

“Do you think what she said is right? Is the body you found Mister Pullman?”

“We just don’t know until we get a DNA match. We called you back down for a little more help. Did Mister Pullman have a usual route from bingo back to his apartment? Or maybe even any places in the facility where he would normally be? We just want to do one more sweep for evidence before we leave.”

“I can give you the walk around. I’m not sure if he had a route, but I could show you how most of the residents get from point A to point B around here.”

“That would be great,” I said.

“Sure, follow me, we’ll start at our group hall and work our way back to his room.”

We followed her over to the facility’s main hall and entered. I assumed it had been a banquet room or conference center in the building’s past life as a hotel. The room had a brightly patterned blue carpet with gold designs. Four long tables, covered in red plastic tablecloths, spanned front to back, and metal folding chairs were pushed in underneath. The tables stopped at a stage with a bingo ball tumbler and a microphone stand.

“We normally leave the side doors here open on evenings when it’s nice out.” She pointed. “They lead out to the courtyard in the back. Henry would have taken that way so he could chat up whoever was sitting outside on the way back to his room.”

She walked us over and outside through the doors. “The back path here takes you over to his building.”

We followed her past the wicker tables with umbrellas, to the sidewalk heading back toward the residents’ housing. Hank and I kept our eyes on the ground as we walked, looking for any scrap of evidence. The sidewalk headed toward a wooden deck overlooking the pond, then turned back toward the complex. We found nothing. Janet stopped at the back door of the building and removed a white keycard from the pocket of her white jacket. She slid it through the reader on the locked door and turned the handle.

“Is this always locked?” I asked.

“Yeah, all the residents have a card. Henry always wore his on a cord around his neck.”

“Do the readers log anything? Time and date of entry and by whom?” Hank asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

We searched the ground and shrubs around the back door for a moment before entering. Our walk down Mr. Pullman’s path had netted us nothing. We took the elevator back up to the sixth floor and walked to room 608. Telwan, Pax, and Officer Meechum stood inside.

“Got something,” Meechum said. He held up an evidence bag with a round purple inhaler inside. “It belonged to Mr. Pullman. I found it out in the back parking lot against the pond.”

I took the bag and turned the inhaler inside so I could see who it was prescribed to. Henry Pullman’s name was on the label attached to the back. I spun the plastic bag in my hand again. The medication contained in the inhaler was printed under the brand name. They matched with the tox report we had on the deceased man.

“Back parking lot?” I asked.

Meechum nodded in confirmation.

I looked at Janet. “Any reason why he’d be back there?”

“No. None.”

“Maybe he got in a car and dropped it,” Hank said.

“Or was taken and dropped it. Did Rickson get anything from the front gate?” I asked.

“He’s having them make copies of the log now,” Telwan said.

“Good.”

Pax held out his hand for the inhaler, and I handed it over.

“I’m through here,” Pax said. From the kitchen table, he took the items, sealed in evidence bags, that he’d selected for DNA sampling and placed them in his kit, along with the inhaler. “I want to get everything back and get started. I’ll see what prints are on the inhaler at the lab and let you know.”

“Thanks, Pax,” I said.

My phone buzzed against my leg in my pocket.

I turned to see Hank pulling his phone from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. When we both got a text at the same time, that meant one thing.

I pulled out my phone. “From the captain,” I said.

“Yup,” Hank said.

We had matching text messages from Captain Bostok to call him back. The message was followed by
187
and
9-1-1
.

I dialed the captain, who picked up right away.

“Hey, it’s Kane.”

“Are you with Rawlings?”

“Yeah. He’s right next to me.”

“We have another. It’s out in Wesley Chapel. Pasco County sheriffs are on the scene and expecting you.”

“Pasco County?” I asked.

“It’s the Redding copycat again.”

“Shit. We’re on our way out there.”

“Rick will meet you there. I’ll send the address to your phone.”

“Got it.” I hung up and looked at Hank. “We have another one.”

He let out a breath and bobbed his head.

“Telwan, Meechum, do another lap around the lot and see if there’s anything else. Have Rickson get me a copy of that gate log as soon as possible.”

“Will do,” Telwan said.

“Are you going to need me out there?” Pax asked.