The Fregoli Delusion (23 page)

25

Karen stood in front of the
suspect whiteboard in the war room at 1:00
p.m.
as they went through the list, beginning with James Edward Bishop.

“Jim and I did a thorough review
of the surveillance video from the house. That place is seriously wired. A
roach couldn’t leave the property without being seen. We saw Jarrett leave on
his bike, and nobody else. Noo-body. Zippo. As far as we’re concerned,
Winterbottom, Bishop the butler guy, Chrissy the widow, and the rest of the
staff were all inside the house for the entire window in which he would’ve been
shot.”

“So they come off the board?” Hank
asked.

“They come off the board.”

“Sounds good to me,” Horvath said.

“I agree,” said Truly, standing
next to Karen.

As Truly moved the photos back to
the person of interest board, Hank asked her about the two young men from the
bicycle shop whose fingerprints were found on the bike.

“Bike Shop Number One,” she said,
pointing, “is Jeremy Olson, aged twenty, works part time at the bike shop doing
repairs, and races part time on the trail bike circuit. He’s been in Vermont
since last Wednesday morning. Bike Shop Number Two,” she pointed again, “is
Roger Polk, aged thirty-six, runs a delivery service that includes the bike
shop. He’s divorced and lives with his mother in an apartment in Strathton. He
used an ATM a few blocks from his place at six fifty-seven on Thursday morning.
He says he didn’t get across the bridge into Midtown before seven thirty because
of a car accident near the train yard. I checked. It happened.”

“Which means he couldn’t have been
in Granger Park,” Horvath said.

“Correct.”

“Move them both off the board,”
Hank said. “How about Cynthia Troy Powell?”

Truly erased the names of the
people she’d moved from the board, then looked at the photo of the woman who’d
been the last known person to have an affair with H.J. Jarrett. “She had a
stroke three weeks ago in St. Louis. She’s convalescing right now in a private
facility.”

“Off she comes.”

“Leaves us with two names,”
Horvath said. “Perry Crocker and Richard Holland.”

Hank looked at Truly. “What’s the
latest on Crocker?”

“The search of his home yielded
the Colt from his safe. It's not our murder weapon. Also the .357 Magnum from
the housekeeper’s bedroom, which is also not our murder weapon. A search of his
vehicle gave us nothing remotely of interest other than Mrs. Jarrett’s prints,
along with his own.”

“Okay,” Hank said. “What about the
navigation system?”

“No luck, once again. It’s
disconnected and currently not functioning. He has an appointment to have it
replaced. The new unit’s been on order for a week. Apparently it costs almost a
thousand dollars.”

“Christ,” Karen said, “remind me
not to waste money on one of those things.”

“Every time we turn around we’re
in a blind alley,” Hank said. His cell phone vibrated. He took it out, looked
at the display, and turned away to take the call.

“Other than a possible motive and
possible opportunity,” Horvath said, “we don’t really have anything solid on
this guy.”

“On the other hand, Holland gave
us a phony alibi,” Karen said. “Doesn’t that—” She broke off at the expression
on Hank’s face.

“That was Walter Parris,” Hank
said, putting his phone away. “Brett’s in ICU at Angel of Mercy. It was a hit-and-run,
about an hour ago.”

26

They found Walter Parris in a waiting
area outside the intensive care unit at Angel of Mercy Hospital. He introduced
them to his wife, Lisa Gregg Parris, a stiff, emotionless woman in a jacket and
skirt, white blouse, and pearls. As Hank shook her offered hand, he saw in her
eyes the signs of medication.

“We’ve met before,’ he said,
releasing her hand.

“Yes. I remember.”

“I'm very sorry to hear this news.
I know how hard it is.”

“Thank you.”

Lisa looked at Karen and said
nothing.

Hank motioned Walter to one side.
“How is he?”

“Unconscious.” Walter glanced over
his shoulder at his wife, who was returning to her seat against the far wall.

The waiting area was quiet at the
moment. Two hospital staff members in scrubs passed behind them, talking quietly.
Three people waited silently in the opposite corner of the room for news about
another patient. A young woman sat in a seat two away from Walter's wife, hands
clasped between her knees, head down.

“We just got home from church when
we heard. My wife’s very upset. The doctor thinks Brett's suffered a
concussion. They're waiting for results from their tests. He had a seizure, but
they stabilized him. He's out of immediate danger, but he has a broken leg, a
broken pelvis, and a broken wrist. He's lucky to be alive.”

“What happened?”

“He was downtown for lunch. With
his girlfriend. They got out of the taxi and a car hit him as he was crossing
the road. It kept on going.”

“His girlfriend was with him when
it happened?”

Walter looked at the young woman
sitting along the wall two empty seats away from Lisa Gregg Parris. “That's her
there.”

“What's her name?” Hank asked.

“Leanne. I can't remember her last
name. We don't know her very well.”

Karen walked over to the young
woman and sat down in the empty seat beside her. “I'm Detective Stainer. You're
Leanne?”

The young woman unclasped her
hands, put them on her knees, and straightened up. She wore a green plaid
short-sleeved blouse and blue jeans. A black purse was wedged between her
scuffed pink sneakers. Her thick black hair was shoulder-length and uncombed.
Her complexion was dark and her features were Native American. When she looked in
Karen’s general direction, her eyes were red from crying.

“Yes.”

“What's your last name, Leanne?”

“Nephews. Will Brett be okay?”

“We don't know any more than you
do. We just got here. You're Brett's girlfriend, is that right?”

“I'm his friend,” she replied,
glancing uncomfortably toward Walter. “We’re in the same support group.”

“For schizophrenia,” Karen
guessed.

“Yes. We’re friends, so sometimes
we go out together. As friends.”

“Sure,” Karen said. “I understand.
You're just friends.”

“Yes.” Her eyes remained on the
floor. “Brett helps me. When I get down, if I want to stop my meds, if I want
to start drinking again.”

Hank approached her, Walter
trailing behind him, and crouched down. “You were going to lunch together
today, is that right?”

“Yes. At The Box Factory. Brett
likes seafood.”

“Tell us what happened, Leanne.”

“The taxi stopped across the road.
We got out on my side. Brett started to cross the road. I left my purse in the taxi.
I got it and shut the door, and it happened. I—” She screwed up her face and
began to cry.

Hank took a handkerchief out of
his jacket pocket and gave it to her. She sobbed into it. “Take your time,” he
said.

“Sorry,” she mumbled into the handkerchief.

“Don't apologize,” he said,
looking at Karen. She tilted her head sideways a fraction. He nodded.

“Support groups are important,”
Karen said. “They’re like a buddy system. You encourage each other, and it
gives you someone to talk to who understands what you're going through.”

Leanne blew her nose into the
handkerchief.

Walter walked away and knelt down
in front of his wife.

“He doesn't like me,” Leanne
murmured.

“That's okay,” Karen said, “he
doesn't like me either. Can you tell us the rest of what happened?”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath and
glanced toward Karen. “I don't cry. They say I should. So I guess it's not
wrong to.”

“No, it's not. Did you see the car
that hit him?”

Leanne shook her head. “It
happened so fast.”

“That's okay. Which way did it
come from?”

Leanne thought for a moment, then
raised her left hand, the one holding the handkerchief. “From over here.”

“You were facing the street, and
it came from your left? From behind the taxi?”

Leanne nodded.

“The Box Factory's on Gage,” Karen
said to Hank. “It's a two-way street. The car was following the taxi.”

He nodded.

“Leanne, did you notice anything
about the car at all?”

“It was gray. Or blue.”

“And it didn't stop?”

She shook her head, staring at the
floor.

“Did it slow down?”

“It hit him and kept on going. It
went away fast.”

“Okay. Did you see the driver?”

“No.” She hesitated for a moment.
“I ran out. The other cars stopped. I tried to wake him up, but a man said don’t
touch him. He said he'd called nine-one-one. Then they wouldn't let me go with
him in the ambulance. One of the cops brought me here.” Her eyes moved to
Hank’s shoes. “Nobody will tell me if he's going to die.”

“He's not going to die,” Hank
said, “but he's still unconscious. They've stabilized him. Where do you live,
Leanne?”

“In a group home. He's going to be
okay?”

“He's out of immediate danger, but
he may have a concussion. Where did you and Brett meet this morning?”

“He picked me up in the taxi, at
my place. We were going to have lunch and then go see a movie.”

“Do you have any way to get home?
Can someone pick you up? Family?”

She shook her head. “I'm from
Piscataway. My dad, he threw me out a long time ago.”

“We'll make sure you get a ride
back to the group home,” Karen said.

Hank stood up and walked over to
Walter Parris. “She says a police officer brought her to the hospital.”

“Yes.” Walter stood up. He took a
business card out of his pocket and gave it to Hank. The card belonged to
Detective Tom Brannigan, Traffic Investigation Unit, Special Investigations,
Glendale Police Department. “I asked him to stay until you had a word with him.
I think he's waiting in the cafeteria on the second floor.”

“What can you tell me about
Brett’s whereabouts this morning?”

“He slept in this morning, which
was a bit unusual, so he didn’t go out for a walk. Mona came over. They did
their session. He stayed in his room until about, oh, eleven thirty when a taxi
came to pick him up. That’s all.”

Hank handed the card back to him
and walked over to Karen. “There's a TIU detective waiting for us in the
cafeteria.”

Karen stood up.

“Do I have to leave?” Leanne
asked.

“Not if you don't want to,” Karen
said. “Like I said, we'll make sure someone takes you back to the group home
when you're ready.”

“Thanks.” She held out the
handkerchief to Hank, staring at his kneecaps.

“Keep it,” he said. “You may want
to cry again.”

She nodded and pulled it back, squeezing
it tightly.

Brannigan was drinking coffee and
talking on his cell phone when they found him in the cafeteria. He ended the
call and shook hands. “Not much I can tell you right now,” he said as they sat
down. “So far we've got a black Honda or a white Ford Escort or a gray SUV, and
nobody saw the driver. Nobody got the tag number, either. The cab driver didn't
see it happen. He was too busy looking over his shoulder at the girl. Any word
on the Parris guy?”

“Unconscious but stable,” Hank
said.

Karen leaned forward. “I'll bet it
was a silver sports car. Unbefuckinglievable.”

Brannigan looked at her. “You know
something?”

“Just a minute,” Hank interjected.
“Nobody IDed it as a silver sports car, did they?”

Brannigan shifted a newspaper
aside and pulled over his notebook. “Let's see.” He flipped a page. “The
girlfriend, Leanne Whatshername, Nephews, said she thought it was gray or blue.
Another witness, a Gail Henk, was coming out of the restaurant, and said she
thought it was a white car, but couldn't say what kind. And a Philip Marconi,
who was just going into the restaurant, said he looked back and thought he saw
a black passenger van speeding away. Typical. Some of these vehicles may
actually have been on the street at the time but had nothing to do with it.
Eyewitnesses in hit-and-run cases are notoriously unreliable, folks.”

Karen shook her head, seething.
“It was Holland. That arrogant sonofabitch was taking out our only witness.”

“Witness?” Brannigan frowned. “To
what?”

“A homicide we're working,” Hank
replied, curtly. “Brett Parris was nearby when it happened. He said he saw a
silver sports car leave the scene, but—” He held up a hand as Brannigan reacted.
“He's not a reliable witness. He's a delusional schizophrenic with a paranoid
belief that a certain individual who drives a silver sports car is stalking
him. There's no definite connection here.”

“The hell there ain't,” Karen
objected.

“This hit-and-run could be a
random thing, completely unconnected,” Hank said.

“What's this guy's name you’re
talking about?” Brannigan asked.

“Richard Holland,” Karen said
quickly. She rattled off his address and the make, model, and license number of
Holland's car from memory.

As Brannigan wrote it down, Hank
leaned forward. “Karen, we can't jump to conclusions here. Perry Crocker drives
a silver sports car, too. Remember, it was returned to him this morning.”

Brannigan looked at him. “Who's
this now?”

Hank sighed and recited Crocker's
particulars, also from memory. “It’s unlikely there’s a connection,” he
repeated as Brannigan wrote it all down.

“Well, you’re right there,” Karen
said with considerable heat, “because it wasn't Crocker. It was Holland.
Crocker has no reason to hit-and-run Brett Parris, but Holland sure the fuck
does.”

“Are there traffic cameras
nearby?” Hank asked Brannigan.

“A few blocks away on either side.
We were going to check against all these descriptions anyway when we got time.
If our guy happened to go through a red light at those intersections or was
speeding, we’ll know, but if not, we’ll be shit out of luck. Anyway, looks like
we could start with these two vehicles.”

“Just look for Holland's Ferrari,
that's all,” Karen spat. “You'll find it. The fucker’s a cold-blooded killer,
and it’d mean nothing to run down a defenseless bastard like Brett Parris.”

“Karen,” Hank warned.

She smashed her fist on the table
and jumped out of her chair. “Don't fucking
Karen
me! You've been
fighting me from day one on Holland, goddamn it, and now that poor bastard's up
there in a fucking coma! Thanks to you!”

Hank watched in dismay as she
stormed out of the cafeteria. He stood up. “Check those cams. ASAP.”

“Roger, Lieutenant.” Brannigan
looked up at him, amused.

Hank went out into the corridor
and looked left and right. There was no sign of her. To the right, the corridor
ended in a t-intersection. He went down and looked left and right. Nothing. He
retraced his steps, passing the cafeteria entrance, and kept on going. There
were fewer people in the corridor this way. He passed a doorway into a small
chapel and stopped. Karen stood inside the chapel with her back to him, her
fists clenched at her sides, her posture rigid.

He went in and closed the door
behind him. They were alone in the room.

She turned and bared her teeth.
“You are so full of shit it's unbelievable. You're so busy kissing everybody's
ass because they're rich and important you can't see the plain facts right in
front of your fucking face!” Her voice rose. “You're so fucking busy being one
of
them
you've forgotten you're a fucking cop! You're supposed to act
like a
cop
, you fucking hypocrite! He shot that old fucker, he ran over
the only person who saw him there, and you're fucking letting him get away with
it because he's rich, his lawyer's rich, and everybody else in this fucking case
is
rich
!”

She smacked a fist into her palm.
“It's not fair! I try
so
fucking hard! And look at how that fucking
Parris treats that girl downstairs, like she's a piece of shit on the bottom of
his fucking shoe because she's native and mentally ill and not some fucking
debutante! She can't even call herself the guy's girlfriend because his rich
daddy doesn't like it! I'm sick of all of them, and I'm sick of you! Goddamn it
all to hell! You're screwing up this fucking case just to please
them
!”