Goddess of Justice by Dwayne Clayden (mobi ebook reader TXT) 📕

“If we agree Coulter is innocent, and we know the tests are correct, then we need to figure out how the evidence that implicates Coulter got there.”

“Do you have a theory?”

“Dog hair?”

Angie nodded. “Yes. When we searched Coulter’s car, there was dog hair everywhere. It’s impossible for Brad to drive that car without getting dog hair on him. I don’t think Coulter had vacuumed that car for months—maybe over a year.”

Sturgeon nodded. “I get it. We have a dog, and I’m forever cleaning fur off my clothes. It was worse when I was on the street. The dog hair clung to my dark wool pants.”

Angie tapped the dog hair analysis report. “Exactly. Based on what we just talked about, finding dog hair, Lobo’s hair at the tattoo parlor murders is a given. Coulter’s clothes had to be covered with Lobo’s hair. Every scene Coulter attended would likely have dog hair. So, we have two possibilities. One, the dog hair transferred from Coulter to the crime scene. Or, the second possibility, the killer planted it there. But that doesn’t matter, because we already know that a transfer is likely to have happened. The dog hair evidence is inadmissible.”

Sturgeon nodded. “Zerr and Steele are searching for the hookers who gave a statement that they saw Brad’s car at the scene before the murders. They didn’t find them last night. We’ll have to leave that to them. The gun?”

Gayle glanced at Angie, who shrugged.

“That one is challenging,” Gayle said. “You were there when Coulter took his gun out of his holster. You took the gun into evidence. Angie took it out of evidence and test fired it. Then she did the bullet analysis.”

“So,” Angie said, “the only person who could have replaced Coulter’s gun with another is you.”

Angie and Gayle stared at Sturgeon. He glared back. “And you two were doing so well up to that point.” Sturgeon tapped the evidence bag holding the gun. “That’s the gun Coulter handed over to me. I’m sure you checked the serial number.”

Angie nodded. “I did.”

Sturgeon leaned back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head.

“How do we explain the ballistic evidence?”

Angie and Gayle stared blankly back at Sturgeon.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Morning rush hour was over, and the below-freezing temperatures and icy wind kept office workers inside. Brad headed down Fourteenth Street to Seventh Avenue, then turned east. With the gym bag slung over his shoulder, he practically skated on the icy sidewalk into downtown. He bought an extra-large coffee and continued toward the library. This was where he had to be careful. The downtown library was right next to police headquarters. He’d thought about going to another library, but the downtown library had the best archives. He needed to read the newspapers from the last week again.

He kept his head low as he approached the library door. He slid the coffee under the worn jean jacket and entered. He smuggled the coffee to the fourth floor and took a table in the back corner. He set the coffee by the table leg and headed to the newspaper section where he grabbed all the papers for the last week and returned to the table.

He pulled out a couple of pens and a notebook, then sorted the newspapers into a pile with the date of the stabbing on top, followed by dates up to the current day. He glanced around the room frequently, so the librarian didn’t catch him with the coffee. It’s not like he’d be arrested, but he didn’t need the attention. But damn, he needed the coffee.

For the next ninety minutes, he read and re-read the news stories. The press had paid minimal attention to the first murders and didn’t get excited until the pimp and his chauffeur were killed. Thinking he would find the answer somewhere in the columns was silly, but it helped his brain work through the chronology and filled in some blanks from the early cases that he’d forgotten.

One thing that caught his eye was a hit and run that occurred after the drug dealer and before the pimp. He’d follow up on that, as well.

He re-read his original notes and filled in some blanks. Then he listed the murders one by one.

Murders

Drug Dealer, Tuesday, September 9

Billy Tuck

Victoria Park

The first in the string of killings?

Hesitation—the killer had second thoughts, or this was his first kill?

If his first kill, was it harder than the killer had imagined?

Nothing from the press and about the same from the police.

Lack of evidence or leads, so not worth pursuing.

It was easy now to see this as important, but at the time, he would have made the same decision.

Drug Dealer, Saturday, November 22

Vito Sotelo

Victoria Park

There were two months between killings

unless other killings not obviously linked.

He’d need someone to go back through the murders and suspicious deaths in the past six months. He tapped his pen on the pad, then wrote, Sturgeon.

Connection?

The MO was consistent—a knife, not found.

They were drug dealers who were not in jail.

The murders required prior knowledge of the habits of the victims—surveillance.

Maybe someone saw the killer when the victim was being stalked?

But who in that area would tell the cops anything?

If these were the first two murders, there was nothing linking them to Brad. The closest connection was that he’d taken an interest in the first stabbing, then he caught the second case.

Pimp and Chauffeur, Friday, November 28

Owen Judd and Anthony Moss

Eau Claire

Different weapon—a gun.

Four murders, two different weapons:

knife x 2

gun x 2

The shooting was extremely accurate.

The killer blended into the neighborhood.

Dressed as a homeless person?

If the killer had been dressed as a homeless person, he’d be practically invisible to anyone else in the area. In fact, most people went to great lengths to avoid the homeless. Not a suitable witness pool.

Tattoo Parlor, Monday, December 1

Zinovy Frolov, Nico Yudin, 2 more?? Names??

16th Avenue and Edmonton Trail

Killer escalating

four dead

knife,

gun

Confidence?

Thrill?

Multiple weapons

Scene staged

Video evidence left

Not just an escalation

well planned and personal

The penises in the mouth made a statement

Brad thought about a