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Message-ID: <49380asstr$1097122205@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Al Steiner" <do_not_resuscitate_ever@yahoo.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Sacking the Quarterback by Al Steiner (no sex) 3/3
Lines: 2036
Date: Thu,  7 Oct 2004 00:10:05 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

Hello to all.  It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I continue
to get emails asking me for more of my writing.  In particular, since
posting "North of the River" and "Collateral Damage", I'm asked for samples
of my "normal" writing.  This is one such example - a short story I composed
and published under my real name about a year before I began publishing here
as Al Steiner.  This is not a sex story.  I know this is a site for that
genre and by posting this here I am off-topic and I apologize in advance to
all who are offended by this.  Please do not send me email asking where the
sex is.  You are warned in advance that there is none and if you're not
interested in seeing my normal writing you should move on to the next story.
I have changed the name of this story and certain geographic details to
hinder identification of myself, but the main plot and everything else
remains as I initially composed it.  As always, please let me know what you
think.  I will be posting this in three sections over the next week or so.
My email address has changed for the third time now thanks to the spamming
machines.  The new one is do_not_resuscitate_ever@yahoo.com



Please send all comments, positive and negative, to this address.  I will
respond to as many as I can.  Peace to all,



Al Steiner









SACKING THE QUARTERBACK 3/3

By Al Steiner



Sergeant Miller, a twenty-two year police officer and the supervisor of the
Fresno Police Department's A rotation of the homicide detail knew something
was funny before he even responded to the scene.  The on-call homicide team,
both basic patrolmen rank policemen, were usually able to handle the routine
homicides which took place at night, which was when most homicides in the
City of Fresno occurred.  However, due to the stature of the victim (even
though it had yet to be established that he even was a victim), Miller's
pager went off shortly after Brentwood and Wilson had received the details
of their latest case.  The telephone number printed in the screen of his
pager he recognized immediately as that belonging to Detective Wilson, the
senior investigator of A team.  Cursing to himself, he rolled out of bed
where his girlfriend, a young dispatcher, was snoring away, and picked up
the phone.  He dialed the number and was quickly filled in by Wilson.



"Chad Buckingham?" he said, predictably.  "No shit?"



"No shit," Wilson responded.  "Apparently there's no reason to suspect a
homicide at this time.  Patrol wants us to come out and take a look at the
scene.  I talked to Sergeant Oakly, the nightwatch supervisor.  She says it
looks like he was smokin' some rock and drinking some booze in a motel room
tonight.  Fire found him dead on the floor and transported him over to Saint
Mary's.  I called them a few minutes ago and they told me they pronounced
him dead not too long ago.  They say there's no signs of trauma except for
some cuts on his arm.  Oakly says there's broken glass all over the place in
the room, like he smashed a couple glasses or something.  She also says that
somethin' don't look right in the room."



"What does she mean?" he asked.



"She couldn't say," Wilson replied.  "She said it was nothin' she could put
her finger on but she wants us to check it out.  She's got the room sealed
and CSI is on the way.  I thought I'd let you know since he's, you know,
famous and all and the media's bound to pick this up before too long."



"No problem," Miller assured him.  "Get over there and check the place out,
I'll be out shortly."



"Right," Wilson said, hanging up.



Miller set the phone down and sat there for a moment, thinking.  Like many
cops, he was an avid golfer, playing whenever he could get the chance.  And,
also like most cops, he preferred to spend his off-duty time with other
cops.  Two weeks ago, during a brief break in the miserable San Joaquin
Valley winter weather, he had played eighteen holes at a local course with
three of his departmental acquaintances, one of whom being a former trainee
of his from his patrol officer days that now worked in the Sex Crimes
bureau: Rick Clarkson.   During the course of the round, Clarkson had filled
them in on the details regarding a crime that they had previously heard
rumors about; namely the rape of a Marshall County patrol sergeant's
daughter by the infamous Chad Buckingham.  Fuming at the shitty state of the
American criminal justice system, Clarkson had explained how the handsome
quarterback was going to get away scot-free, again.  They had all
commiserated for a few moments with the plight of their unknown brother law
enforcement officer, sodomized by the very system that he was a part of.



And then Jentz, a burglary detective, had asked Clarkson,  "How did he take
it when you told him?  I mean jeez, can you imagine havin' your daughter
raped and then being told that nothin' is gonna be done about it?"



"It was weird," Clarkson had said, shaking his head.  "It seemed like he
kinda expected it.  He didn't blow up or rant or anything.  But he had this
weird look in his eyes.  You know, it wouldn't surprise me if that fuckin'
degenerate had himself an accident before too long."



"That'd be great," Jentz said, smiling and taking a swig out of his seventh
beer.  "Sometimes you just gotta create your own justice."



And the other three had muttered enthusiastic encouragement with this
statement, not really believing that anything of the sort would really
happen.



Except now, something of the sort had happened.  And it was his job to
investigate it.





+++++





When he arrived at the motel twenty minutes later, Miller found everything
being done by the book.  A thirty-yard perimeter in front of the motel room
was roped off with yellow crime-scene tape that was attached to two white
patrol cars.  The white crime scene investigation van was parked just
outside the tape, its two-officer crew presumably inside gathering any
evidence that might be found.  Sergeant Oakly and two patrol officers were
standing around out front, keeping the throngs of curious onlookers, which
now numbered approximately thirty or so, outside the yellow tape.
Brentwood, he saw, was talking to several of the onlookers, undoubtedly
pumping them for any information that they might or might not possess.
Wilson was nowhere in sight.  Miller figured he was probably inside the
motel room with the CSI team, trying to get a handle on exactly what had
happened in there.  He was grateful to see that no media had arrived yet,
although he knew it wouldn't be long.



He ducked under the tape and approached Sergeant Oakly, who, if protocol
were being followed, would be keeping a log of who had entered and left the
scene.



"How you doing, Gary?" she greeted him as he approached.  "Sorry to have
them drag you out at night for what's probably nothing but what it seems,
but..."



"It's okay, it's okay," he assured her.  "All part of the job.  You did good
callin' us in on this one, even if it is on the up and up.  Is Wilson
inside?"



"Yeah," she told him.  "He got here about ten minutes ago, right behind the
CSI guys."



"Cool," he said.  "I'm gonna go have a chat with him for a few minutes and
see what's up."



"I'll log you in," she answered, pulling a notebook from her pocket.



He stepped up to the red door with the black plastic 47 printed on it and
pushed it open with his elbow, stepping carefully inside.  Inside he found
Wilson, dressed in the standard garb of detectives responding to after hours
calls: blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweater that was tucked in to reveal
the gun and badge clipped to the belt; standing near the doorway watching
the two evidence technicians, who were kneeling on the carpet examining
something.  Next to Wilson was a stack of video equipment, which had
probably already been used, and a frightfully old 35mm camera with a flash
attachment.



"Hi, Gary," Wilson greeted him tonelessly, as was his nature.  "Glad you
came out."



"Oh?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.  "Is something wrong here?"



Wilson chuckled cynically. "This crime scene, and that's what I'm callin' it
now, stinks to high heaven."



"How so?"



"I'll tell you," he replied, looking around as he talked.  "At first glance
everything looks on the up and up here."  He pointed to the carpet where the
two technicians, oblivious to the discussion going on around them, were
using scissors to clip a piece of carpet fiber.  "Over there is where the
stiff was found.  I talked to the fire captain when I got here.  He says
Buckingham was lying on his side in the middle of a bunch of broken glass.
On the nightstand there next to him is more broken glass, some of it with
blood drops on it.  You can see the rock pipe and the half empty bottle of
rum and the crack vials, two of them empty, one unopened.  I checked with
dispatch and they say they got a 911 call from this room at 2141 hours by a
male stating he was not feeling well.  They heard the phone drop to the
ground and about a minute later the sound of breaking glass.  Nothing else
until the fire crew made entry.  Just the sort of scene you'd expect to
find, isn't it?  Tells a nice little story about a hero, college student
quarterback that got himself a motel room, probably with some floozy as a
companion, and overdosed himself on rock and booze therefore causing his
premature demise.  Right?"



"Yeah," Miller agreed.  "On the surface that's what it appears."



"Uh huh," Wilson went on.  "But when you take a closer look and apply a
little thought, there's a couple things that just don't add up."



"Such as?"



"Well, first of all," Miller explained.  "What was he doin' sittin' over
there by the TV?  You can't watch it from there and the thing wasn't even
on.  It looks like the chair, when it fell, was facing the wall.  Would
someone sit in a room, facing the wall all night, drinking booze and smoking
out?  And the telephone," he pointed across the room to where the handset
was still laying on the carpet although the other end had been unplugged at
some point.  "If the guy gasped out his last words on the phone and then
collapsed, why didn't we find him over by the phone?  We're supposed to
believe that he walked back across the room, sat down in his chair, broke
the two glasses, and then fell over sideways?"



Miller nodded.  "What else?"



"Only a couple other things inside the room.  It took me a few minutes to
figure it out but it looked wrong from the second I walked in.  It goes back
to the chair there.  Take a good look around the room and you'll notice that
it's amazingly clean.  The bed, except for a little ruffling of the covers,
is still made up.  The other chair is sitting nicely in its accustomed spot.
There's no mess in the sink, there's no garbage, except for what the
paramedics left, anywhere on the floor or in the garbage bags.  The shitter
has still got the little sanitary wrap on the seat.  Would you expect to
find a room that a little sex and cocaine party had been thrown in to look
so neat?"



"No," Miller said.



"And then there's a few other things that don't have to do with the room.
Parked out front is a nice, one-year-old, Mercedes convertible.  I ran the
tag and it belongs to our victim.  The doors are all unlocked, the pull out
stereo is still in place.  And then there's the matter of the keys.  They
are nowhere to be found.  They're not in the room anywhere and the patrol
guy I sent over to the hospital to babysit the body says they're not in his
clothes.  I took a quick look through the car and they're not in there
either.  The same goes for the motel key.  So where have these keys
mysteriously gone?"



"Good question," Miller agreed.  "Have you checked with the manager yet?"



"I have," Wilson confirmed.  "Actually I got the night clerk who was able to
tell me that the room was rented for one night to a  "Charles Beaking".  Mr.
Beaking paid cash for the room and listed his address as..." He paused for a
moment, pulling a notebook from his pocket and reading from it.  "2700 Smith
Lane in Snodgrass, California.  I ran a check on that address.  There is no
Snodgrass, California, the zip code he supplied does not exist and the phone
number he supplied uses a prefix that is only used on the east coast and an
area code that only exists in Seattle, Washington.  He listed a California
license plate on the register that has one too many numbers in it.  At that
point I had him contact the manager.  He's the one that rented the room.  A
nice enough guy who just might be able to think his way out of a paper bag
if he's given enough time.  After some prompting, he was able to remember
the gentleman he signed into the room.  Says he was about five-eight,
Caucasian, one fifty or so, wearing dirty blue jeans and a pullover brown
sweater.  Brown and brown, missing a few teeth, and unshaven.  Says the guy
stunk like he hadn't had a shower in a while.  In short, a typical customer
of this place and completely unlike our victim."



"Okay," Miller sighed.  "It looks like we probably got ourselves a homicide.
Let's comb this room carefully and tag everything that might even remotely
be of value.  This is gonna be a high profile case so let's not screw
anything up."



"You got it, Sarge," Wilson said.  "You think that maybe this is a vigilante
thing?"  He of course knew of Buckingham's reputation.



"Yep," Miller agreed.  "And if I'm right, the person who did it would've
been extremely careful."



"The cop?" Wilson almost whispered.  "The one who's daughter he..."



Miller nodded, his heart torn in two directions.  One the one hand,
Whitecoff was a fellow cop and a fellow father.  Being the father of a
teenaged daughter himself, he understood completely the impulse that the man
must have felt.  A part of him cheered the removal of a person such as
Buckingham from society.  On the other hand, he was a homicide detective and
this was a homicide, and a future high-profile one at that.  He would have
to pull out all of the stops in his investigation and make sure that the
officers under his command did the same.  There would be no
look-the-other-way here.  Too many people would be watching.





+++++





The landscape between the southern suburbs of Fresno and the northern
suburbs of Maldonado consisted of about twenty miles of farmland; vineyards
on the north, tomato fields on the south, both stretching from horizon to
horizon.  Returning from their mission of justice that night, Jason and
Janet took the offramp for Road 114, a two lane county road that ran
east-west near the county lines.  Jason headed west on the badly maintained
rural road, coming eventually to the San Joaquin River levee road.  He
turned south here, driving on the twisting, elevated surface with the
rain-swollen river on one side and the endless expanses of farmland on the
other.  A ten-minute drive brought them to what they were looking for.



Jason pulled the car into a large turnout on the river side of the road.  At
the far end of the gravel surface stood a small stand of willow trees.  He
parked the car behind them, effectively concealing it from view by anyone
passing on the road.  Once at a stop and satisfied with the vehicle's
positioning, he shut down the engine and popped the trunk.  Inside were the
large canvas bag that contained the instruments of their mission and the
paper bag that contained much of the garbage.  Jason, donning another pair
of gloves for the operation, stuffed the paper bag inside the canvas one,
leaving the latter unzipped.  For the next ten minutes, he and Janet walked
around near the levee, gathering up large rocks, which they carried over and
placed in the bag.  When it weighed close to a hundred pounds, he zipped it
up and closed the trunk.  Two minutes later they were back on the levee road
heading south.



Another ten-minute's drive brought them to a bridge that crossed the river.
Turning right onto the iron span, Jason stopped the car in the precise
center.  He took a quick look around, seeing no other vehicles in sight and
no one fishing on either side of the river.  Satisfied that they were
unobserved, he popped the trunk again.  Moving quickly, he stepped out of
the car, lifted, with some effort, the heavy canvas bag from the trunk and
walked to the nearest edge of the bridge.  He muscled it over the side and
watched as it landed with a loud splash in the murky, fast moving water and
sank immediately from sight.



He closed the trunk, stepped back into the driver's seat, and continued his
trip across the bridge, heading for Interstate 5 which was twelve miles to
the west and which would bring them back to Maldonado by a back road route.



"Are you sure no one will ever find that stuff?" Janet asked as they cruised
along the deserted road at seventy-five miles an hour.



"It's unlikely at best," Jason assured her.  He understood the source of her
fear, perhaps better than she did.  Inside that bag was enough evidence to
send them both to death row.  "Even during a severe drought, there's still
water covering that part of the channel.  And if a fisherman ever latches
onto it, it's too heavy to pull in, even with the strongest fishing line.
The only way it could be recovered is with divers, and even then they'd have
to know exactly where it was and it would be a dangerous operation."



She nodded, lost in thought.  Finally, she said, "I can't believe we
actually did that.  We killed someone."



"Me either," he told her solemnly.  "But what's done is done.  All we can
hope for now is that we were careful enough not to get caught."



They entered the Maldonado City Limits thirty minutes later, crossing over
the P Street bridge from the west.  Just to the south of the downtown area,
Jason pulled the car into a self serve car-wash where they would thoroughly
wash and vacuum the Volvo, therefore eliminating any lingering forensic
evidence.  As he reached into his front pocket for one-dollar bills to feed
into the change machine, he felt something unfamiliar in there.  He pulled
it out.



"Oh my God," he exclaimed, scared at the near oversight.



"What?" Janet, alarmed at his tone, asked.



"Look," he said, holding up the keyring that had belonged to Buckingham for
her perusal.



It took her a moment to register what he was showing her.  When she realized
what they were she instantly guessed his state of mind.   "It's okay," she
assured him.  "You found them.  Now we can get rid of them."



He shook his head in disgust at himself.  "I forgot about them," he said.
"I can't believe I was so stupid!"



"Jase, it's okay."



"No it's not!" he countered.  "Don't you realize that this set of keys by
itself was enough to convict us?  Just a simple oversight that could've sent
us to prison.  What else have I forgotten?"



She had no answer for him.



He tossed the keys into the nearest garbage can, making sure that they sank
to the bottom.  They washed and detailed the car in silence for the next
twenty minutes, paying particular attention to the tires at Jason's
direction.



Once done they headed for home.





+++++





Sergeant Miller's conviction that Chad Buckingham had been murdered was
strengthened when he read the results of the crime scene investigation the
next morning.  It was not what had been found that interested him but what
had not been found.



"Look at this shit," he said in wonder to detective Wilson.  "Everything
about this crime scene is wrong."



"How so?" asked Wilson, who was leafing through witness statements.



"The crack pipe," Miller read, "contains Buckingham's fingerprints only.
Not even a smidgen of someone else's.  How is that possible?  Even assuming
that there was no floozy smoking out with him, some stocker at whatever
store that jar was bought at had to handle it.  Someone cleaned that glass
before Buckingham smoked out of it.  The rock vials are the same way;
Buckingham's prints only, none from the freakin' dealer that sold it to him.
And the rum bottle, and the Pepsi bottle, and all of the broken glass
fragments.  Same story, Buckingham's prints only.  Someone cleaned every
single thing before he got to that room."



"Only a cop would've thought of something like that," Wilson, who was
uncomfortable investigating another cop never the less felt compelled to
point out.



"No shit," Miller said.  "And for a switch in the pattern, the telephone
handset, where he allegedly made the 911 call, does not have his prints on
it."



"Is it clean too?"



"Nope."  He shook his head.  "We got traces of five other prints from it,
undoubtedly from previous occupants of the room.  We're gonna have to check
previous guests if we can ID them."



"What about Whitecoff?"



"I'm gonna see if I can discreetly get a copy of his prints from DOJ to
compare, but you can bet your ass that none of the one's on the phone are
his."



"Probably not," Wilson agreed.



"And as for the rest of the report..." He shook his head in disgust.
"Nothing.  Not a single goddamn thing was found.  No hair samples, no skin
samples.  Blood was found on the carpet where Buckingham went down and we've
sent it off to the lab for DNA typing, but it's undoubtedly his."



"We're sure not gonna get an indictment from anything in the crime scene,"
Wilson said.  "And nothing from the motel occupants is gonna help either.
Nobody was occupying any of the rooms in that wing except for Buckingham.
Nobody saw anything or heard anything unusual."



"Well, hopefully something will turn up in the autopsy."



"When are they posting him?" Wilson asked.



"I got them to do it today.  In fact they should be starting in about a half
an hour or so."



Wilson gave a cynical smile.  "Bet they didn't like that too much.  Coming
in on a Saturday."



"Screw 'em," Miller replied.  "It's a high profile case.  They can get their
asses down and work like everyone else."





+++++





The autopsy took nearly three hours, about ninety minutes more than a normal
one would have taken.  Jean Carmichael, the senior pathologist of the Fresno
County coroner's office, laid Buckingham's naked, once handsome form out on
the steel table and violated it in ways that would have horrified his
surviving family members.  She cut his chest wide open and removed the
internal organs, inspecting and weighing them.  She sawed his skull open,
removing the brain, weighing and inspecting it.  She combed over every inch
of his tanned form looking for cuts, needle marks, bruises, anything that
would shed light on what had killed the young quarterback.  She took samples
of his blood, his tissues, his urine, his hair, and his sperm.  Miller, a
veteran watcher of autopsies, stood by in the corner of the room, watching
impassively as Carmichael and her assistants did their work.



"Nothing," she finally said, stepping away from the body and pulling off her
bloody gloves.  Her assistants began the work of putting the mess back into
a presentable form for release to the family's mortuary.



"Nothing?" Miller asked, raising his eyebrows.



"He was a healthy, twenty-one year old athlete.  No signs of heart disease
or congenital defects, definitely no infarction.  No stroke, no pulmonary
embolism, no signs of trauma except for the glass cuts on his arm.  His
lungs are in perfect shape, no sign of cigarette smoking or habitual rock
cocaine use.   His liver shows very early signs of alcohol abuse but they're
very early, certainly not enough to have contributed to his death.   If he
used steroids there is no physical damage of any kind from them.  He has no
needle marks on him except for what the paramedics put there.  He has burn
marks on his chest but the hospital and EMS reports say that he was
defibrillated a total of nine times.  In short; nothing."



"Then what killed him?" Miller, exasperated, asked.



She shrugged, stepping over to the sink to wash her hands.  "I don't know."



"You don't know?"  He was quite unaccustomed to hearing a medical examiner
say that.



She shook her head sadly.  "It's obvious that his heart stopped beating,
therefore causing brain hypoxia which is what killed him.  As to why his
heart stopped beating, I haven't the foggiest.  Nothing that shows up
physically is remarkable."



"Could it be a cocaine overdose?  Or alcohol poisoning?"



"Well," she said doubtfully, "it's almost certainly not a cocaine overdose.
People that die from that die in one of two ways and the physical exam
pretty much rules both of them out.  They either have a congenital heart
defect, which I see no signs of, or they smoke so much of it that they cause
a massive cerebral hemorrhage, which I also show no signs of.  As for
alcohol poisoning, that's probably the best possibility.  But from what you
tell me, he was alleged to have called 911 just before he collapsed and the
paramedics found him in V-fib.  Alcohol OD doesn't go along with that
particular scenario."



"Oh?" Miller said, his interest perking up.  "How so?"



"It's simple," she said.  "If he was drunk enough to die from it, he
wouldn't have been able to call 911 for help.  He would've been passed out
on the floor and his respiratory drive would've stopped."



"Great," Miller said.  "So what do we do now?  Do you think the tox screens
will show anything?"



Another shrug.  "We'll have to wait until next week when they come back, but
like I said, it doesn't look like alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose to
me.  In short, I haven't the foggiest idea why this young, healthy, athletic
man died.  For whatever reason, his heart just stopped beating.  I can't
even rule this as a homicide.  It'll have to go down as "unknown" for now."



Miller nodded, lost in thought for a moment.  "What about pharmaceuticals?"
he asked.



"What do you mean?" she wanted to know.



"The person I suspect of doing this has an ex-wife that's an emergency room
nurse.  Would she be able to get hold of anything that could stop this guy's
heart in this manner?"



Carmichael raised her eyebrows thoughtfully.  "Hmm," she said.  "A nurse
huh?  I suppose an emergency room nurse could get hold of a variety of
things that would stop someone's heart.  A simple injection of potassium
chloride would stop someone's heart right in its tracks.  But again, there's
no sign of needle marks on him."



"How about ingestion?"  Miller asked.



She shook her head.  "Drinking it wouldn't work.  Besides, his stomach was
full of what appeared to be rum and coke.  That would've had to have been
absorbed first anyway."



Miller looked up at the ceiling for a moment in frustration.  "Damn," he
whispered, his tone quite close to admiration.  "How did he do it?"



"I just had a thought," Carmichael said quietly.



"What's that?" he asked, looking sharply at her.



"It's just a thought," she qualified.  "Nothing that can be proven or
disproved."



"What?"



"Well," she said carefully, "the cuts on his arm.  They were made either at
or after the moment that the heart began fibrillating.  There's slight blood
flow from the wounds indicating minimal perfusion when they were made; the
kind of weak perfusion that goes along with V-fib.  One of the cuts includes
a laceration to the medial antecubital vein."



"Yes?" he prompted, not quite picking up the thread of her thought yet.



"Well," she went on, "suppose that someone injected our friend here with a
lethal dose of something like potassium chloride.  If they knew that such an
action would leave forensic evidence behind they might be inclined to
obliterate that evidence by cutting over the top of it and making it look
like just another laceration."



Miller looked at her with respectful wonder.  "Son of a bitch," he said
softly.  "You may have just hit upon it."



She gave him a doubtful look.  "Like I said, it's nothing I can prove or
disprove.  Wouldn't you think that someone who was smart enough to
obliterate the forensic evidence in that way would also be smart enough to
know that potassium chloride, or whatever else they used, will be picked up
in the tox screen?"



Miller nodded.  "That's what you would think," he agreed.  "Is there
anything that they could use that wouldn't show up in the tox screen?  At
least in a normal once-over?"



"Nothing," she proclaimed confidently.  "If there's anything in the blood or
tissues that is not supposed to be there, the lab will find it."  She
chuckled.  "Unless your suspect has discovered a lethal dose of something
that is supposed to be there."



"Well he's smart," Miller said, smiling.  "But I don't think he's that
smart.  I think the tox screen is what's gonna nail his ass."



"We'll see next week then."





+++++





At ten-thirty the following Monday morning, Sergeant Miller and Detective
Wilson pulled their department issued Chevy Cavalier to the curb in front of
Janet Whitecoff's house.  Having already learned through the Marshall County
Sheriff's Department that Jason was currently staying with his ex-wife, they
hadn't even bothered trying to reach him at home.



Jason, who had been sipping a cup of coffee while Janet idly folded laundry,
saw them coming up the steps.  Even if he hadn't recognized Miller from
seeing his face at press conferences, he would have known immediately that
they were detectives.



"They're here, Janet," he said softly and calmly.



"The detectives?" she said, just as calmly.



"Yep."  He nodded.  "Remember the plan."



"I will," she assured him.  "Stick to the story no matter what and ask for a
lawyer if they advise me of my rights."



"Right."  He smiled, letting a touch of his nervousness peek through.
"You'll do fine."



They went to the door together and Jason flung it open before the two
detectives had even had a chance to knock.  The two groups of people
appraised one another silently for a moment.



"Sergeant Miller, I presume," Jason finally said, pleasantly enough.



"That's correct," Miller affirmed, keeping his own voice pleasant.  He
pointed to his companion.  "And this is detective Wilson.  I suppose if you
know who I am, then you probably know why we are here too."



Jason nodded.  "I was wondering how long it would take you to show up.
Won't you two come in?"



Miller thanked him and the two homicide detectives stepped inside, their
eyes automatically taking in their surroundings, probing behind furniture
and into the line of sight of other rooms.



"Is your daughter at home?" Miller asked.



"No," Janet answered.  "She started her first day at her new school today."



He nodded, as if he had already known that.



"Would you like to take a seat?"  Jason offered, waving to the dining room
table.



"Well," Miller said hesitantly.  "The fact of the matter is that we're in
quite a hurry.  We have to interview the both of you because of, you know,
what happened to your daughter recently and the fact that the man who is
alleged to have done that do her has turned up dead.  We just have to rule
you out as," He made quote marks with his fingers, "suspects."



"I understand," Jason said neutrally.



"And since we have a limited amount of time in which to do this," he went
on, "it would make things easier if you and I could go talk in one room
while detective Wilson and Mrs. Whitecoff talked in here."



Jason was unable to suppress a chuckle.  He knew exactly why they wanted to
separate Janet and himself and it had nothing to do with how much time they
had.  They did not want them to hear each other's story.  That could only
mean that they suspected Janet was a part of the plot.  They probably
figured her for the weak link in the chain.  Jason, however, had anticipated
just such a separation.



"Is there a problem?" Miller asked, noting the chuckle.



"Not at all," Jason replied, shooting the sergeant a look that let him know
that his bullshit story wasn't fooling him.  "Why don't we go into the den?
"  He looked at Janet.  "Is that okay, Jan?"



"Of course," she said pleasantly.  "Detective, uh, Wilson was it?"



"Yes," he answered, speaking for the first time.



"Won't you sit down?"



Jason led Miller through the house until they came to the den.  One of the
larger secondary bedrooms in the house, the den was furnished much as it had
been before the divorce.  A large computer desk in one corner, a
freestanding bookshelf on one wall that contained mostly medical texts.
Against the back wall was an imitation leather couch that could be folded
out into a bed.  Jason waved the sergeant over to the couch.  Once the
detective was seated, he closed the door and took a seat in the computer
chair.



"Fire away," he told the detective.  "I suppose you want to know where I was
on the night in question."



Miller smiled, removing a notebook from inside of his suit coat.  He opened
it up and unclipped a gold pen that was wedged into it.  "I wish all of my
interviewees were as cooperative," he said.  "Before we start, I'd just like
to say that questioning you is routine.  If you've been watching the news
then you know that we haven't even ruled Mr. Buckingham's death as a
homicide.  We're just covering all of our bases.  Since you have reason to
think ill of Buckingham, we just want to make sure you're not involved in
any way.  I'm sure as a fellow cop, you understand that."



"Sure," Jason said.  "I would've done the same in your position.  No hard
feelings."



"Good," Miller smiled.  "Now with that in mind... " He flipped to a page in
his notebook.  "...Mr. Buckingham died at approximately 9:40 PM on January
23, in a motel room in Fresno.   Is there anyway that you can account for
your presence at that time?"



Jason gave him a crooked smile.  "Well, " he said carefully, "on that
particular day at that particular time, Janet and I were..." He hesitated.
"Well, we were spending some time in a hotel room here in Maldonado."



"A hotel room?"  Miller raised his eyebrows.



"Yes."  He nodded.  "We've been divorced for quite a while before Chrissie
was, you know, raped.  Afterward, when I moved back in here to help take
care of her and Janet and I were around each other all of the time, and,
well, I guess some of the romance came back into our relationship."



"I see," Miller said.  "And you went to a motel to rekindle this?"



"Not a motel," Jason said.  "It was the Hilton downtown."



Miller made a note of this in his book.  "But why did you go to a hotel
room?  Not to get too personal or anything."



"That's okay," Jason said.  "It wasn't really a planned thing.  You see,
we'd been out all day checking out therapists for Chrissie.  It was the
first time since the rape that we'd been alone with each other and things
just kind of came to a head I guess you'd say.  After we'd interviewed the
therapists we talked about having dinner together, just the two of us, and
before we really knew what was happening, we were checking into the Hilton
and ordering room service."



"What time did you check into the hotel?" he asked.



Jason shrugged.  "I don't know, probably about 3:30 or so."



"And how long did you stay there?"



Jason smiled, as if reminiscing.  "Quite a while," he said.  "It was the
best evening I've had in a long time.  Especially the best since Chrissie's
attack.  We probably left there at about 10:30 that night."



Miller frowned, his face conveying obvious disbelief.  "You stayed at the
hotel until 10:30 that night?  Seven hours?"



"Yep," Jason answered levelly.



"Is there anyone who can account for your presence there after you checked
in?"



He shrugged.  "Like I said, we ordered room service."



"What time?"



"Shortly after we checked in."



"So about a quarter to four or so."  This was not a question.  "Anything
later?  Did you order dinner that evening?  Drinks?  Invite some friends
over?  Make any phone calls?"



"Nope."



"So you really have no way to prove that you were in the room beyond when
the room service waiter brought your food?"



"You have my word," Jason replied.



This actually struck Miller as quite funny.  His word.  He laughed out loud.
Jason watched him, unoffended.  He understood the source of Miller's
amusement.



"Okay," Miller finally said, moving on to other things.  "Where was your
daughter while all of this was going on?"



"Janet's mother was staying with her."



"What is her name?"



"Why do you ask?" Jason replied.



"Just another string to run out," he said dismissively, as if it wasn't
important.  "We might need to talk to her to confirm what time you came
home."



"Okay," Jason said.  "But be warned, she can be nasty.  And she most
definitely doesn't like me."



Miller smiled and wrote down Janet's mother's name, address, and phone
number as he rattled it off.



"I'd appreciate it," he said afterward, "if you wouldn't mention the hotel
room to her if you can avoid it.  She wouldn't be too keen on that."



"I'll see what I can do," Miller assured him.  "Now, going back to that day.
You said that you and Janet were out checking out therapists earlier in the
day.  What time did you leave the house that morning?"



And so Jason filled him in on every detail of the story they had worked out
and drilled into each other.  He changed the times slightly so that they
would differ a little from the one's that he had fed Janet.  They worked
their way from awakening in the morning until retiring that night.  Miller
read back the summary to him, asking if it sounded accurate.  Jason agreed
that it did.  Miller then changed tactics.



"How do you feel," he asked, "about Buckingham's death?"



"The truth?" Jason said.



"The truth."



"I couldn't be happier," Jason told him.  "When I heard about it on the news
I jumped for joy.  I wanted to get a bottle of champagne and get drunk.  I
plan to go piss on his grave after they bury him."



"Don't hold back now," Miller said, deadpan, "tell me how you really feel."



"Sorry," Jason replied.   "But that's how I read it.  That scrote brutally
raped my daughter.  He deserves to be dead."



"Your candor is quite refreshing," Miller said.  "I must ask if you don't
think it's somewhat coincidental that he died mysteriously so soon after the
rape?"



"Is it mysterious?" Jason asked.  "I thought he'd overdosed on rock."



"Well let's just say that there are a few things that don't add up."



Jason shrugged.  "What can I say?  He's dead and I'm glad.  I didn't kill
him."



"Did you ever think about killing him?"  Miller asked.



"Sure," Jason said levelly.  "For two weeks after the rape, I could think of
hardly anything else.  In the end, I knew I would never do it.  I know how
well cops fare in prison you see.  And I would end up hurting Chrissie more
in the long run."



"So you just accepted it?" Miller asked incredulously.  "He rapes your
daughter and gets away with it without so much as a bad mention in the
newspaper, and you just accepted that?"



"What else could I do?" Jason asked simply.



"What else indeed?" Miller replied.





+++++







As they drove through the streets of Maldonado, intending to check out the
details that they had been fed, Miller and Wilson compared notes.  The
stories that the two Whitecoff's had told matched almost to the letter.



"Did you try to sweat her a little?" Miller asked.



"A little," he said.  "She's not a frail little housewife though.  She's an
emergency room nurse.  She's almost as cynical and street-wise as a
twenty-year cop.  I asked her if she knew of anything that could kill
someone without being detected in an autopsy."



"And she said?"



"She said, and I quote, 'of course.  Potassium chloride would be the best
way.  But it would be picked up on the tox screen`."



"Shit," Miller said, shaking his head.  "We've got ourselves a couple of
tough nuts here."



"No shit."



For the next three hours they drove all over the Maldonado area.  They
checked with the Hilton hotel and found the record of Jason Whitecoff
checking into the room at 3:20 PM.  They found the receipt for the room
service that they had ordered, raising their eyebrows over the charge marked
"sensuality kit".  They checked with all of the therapists and found that
the Whitecoff's had in fact been to each one at the time that they said they
had been there.  They checked with Janet's mother who, in addition to
confirming that fact that she had stayed with Chrissie from 9:00 AM to 10:50
PM, also gave them a scathing lecture on her opinion of her ex-son-in-law.
Everything that they had been told checked out.  But Miller was not fooled.
The six-hour gap between their last sighting at the hotel by the room
service waiter and their appearance at home allowed for plenty of time to
kill Buckingham.  In addition to this, there was the troubling two hour and
fifteen minute gap between when they had left the house in the morning and
when they had arrived at the first therapist's office; a gap into which,
according to check-in records, the rental of the motel room in Fresno took
place.  Both had explained this away by stating they had had breakfast at a
local Denny's followed by a trip to the library to research proper therapy
techniques.  Nobody at the Denny's or the library had any recollection of
the Whitecoff's being there. The problem was that there was no way to prove
or even find out what they had actually been doing during those two time
periods.



He was down to relying solely on the tox screen.





+++++





"Nothing," Jean Carmichael told him on the phone the following Friday.



"Nothing?" Miller said in disbelief.  "How can there be nothing?  What the
hell did he die from?"



"Nothing that can be determined," she told him.  "I gotta hand it to your
suspect.  If this was a murder, he's discovered the perfect way to do it.
There is absolutely nothing that can be detected that caused this man's
death."



"How is that possible?" Miller demanded.  "The tox screen is completely
clean?"



"Well, there's the usual stuff that we expected," she told him.  "He had a
blood alcohol level of .183.  That's pretty drunk but not enough to kill or
even incapacitate someone.  He had a pretty good level of cocaine in his
blood, but again, not enough to kill, even with the alcohol thrown in."



"Nothing else?  No pharmaceuticals?"



"Oh sure, he had other things in there.  But nothing unexpected.  There was
a lot of epinephrine, atropine, lidocaine, some isupril, some bretillyum, an
elevated level of sodium bicarbonate.  All of which is stuff that they
pumped him full of while they were trying to save him."



"None of those levels were more than usual?" Miller asked, catching the
faintest glimmer of what had really happened.



"Nope," she replied, shooting down his glimmer before it could be fully
formed.  "Every stiff we do a tox screen on has those drugs on board if they
passed through the emergency room.  All of them are standard advanced
cardiac life support measures and all of them are documented in the medical
records that the paramedics and the ER sent over.  There's absolutely
nothing wrong with Mr. Buckingham except for the fact that he's dead."



"So what is your final ruling going to be?" he asked.



"Unknown cause," she told him.  "I can't rule it as a homicide unless you
bring me some fact that allows that.  Sorry."



"No problem," he told her, shaking his head, partially in admiration,
partially in frustration.  "I have one more card to play.  Maybe something
will turn up."



"Let me know," she told him, breaking the connection.







+++++





The following day, at ten o'clock in the morning, Janet and Jason walked in
the front door of the Fresno Police Department's main office.  They had
driven there in response to a phone call the previous evening from Sergeant
Miller.  He had asked that they come down so that he could record their
"official statement" for the file.  Jason had agreed, even though he knew
exactly what was happening.  Miller wanted to get them into an interrogation
room and try to sweat a confession out of them.  Homicide detectives were
masters of interrogation.  Better bullshitters than used car salesmen, they
could cajole, hound, befriend, lie to, and pry at someone for hours until
that person admitted that they were the one who had done it.  They would
speak of evidence that did not exist.  They would talk of reduced charges if
the person would only tell what had really happened.  It was not well known
to the public that the majority of homicides were cleared, not because of
forensic evidence or eyewitnesses, but because the stupid perpetrator
actually confessed his crime to a smooth-talking detective.  It was this,
Jason knew, that Miller was attempting to accomplish today.  Jason, however,
was going to have none of it.





+++++





"Sergeant Whitecoff," Miller asked pleasantly enough.  "How are you today?"



They were in a small room in the back of the police building.  The door had
no doorknob on it but it did have a small peephole in the top that Jason had
already pegged as a pinhole video camera.  There was a small table and two
chairs and not much else in the room.  No windows, no pictures, no sink or
toilet.  Janet had been spirited off by detective Wilson, undoubtedly to a
similar room in some other part of the building.



"I'm surviving," Jason replied amicably.  "What can I do for you today?"



"Well," Miller said, opening the briefcase that sat next to him.  "Like I
told you on the phone, we need to officially record your statement for the
file.  It's just a formality."



"Of course," Jason replied.



"But before we do that," he said, offhandedly.  "There is some routine
paperwork that we need to do."



"And that would be?"



"Well, it's the standard Miranda warning," Miller said, shaking his head as
if annoyingly amused.  "You know how it is.  Every time we interview someone
about something, we have to do this."  He pulled a pre-printed form out of
his briefcase and slid it across the table to Jason.  It had the police
department's seal on the front and the Miranda warning printed below that.
"I'm sure you're familiar with this," he said.  "Now if you'll just read
along with me."



"By all means," Jason replied.



"Okay," Miller said.  "You understand that you have the absolute right to
remain silent."



"Of course."



"Good."  Miller smiled.  "Now if you'll just initial right there next to
that line indicating that you understand that."



 From nowhere he produced a cheap ballpoint pen that he handed to Jason.
Jason took it and initialed where told.



"Great," Miller said.  "Next line.  If you should give up the right to
remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you in a
court of law."



"Got it," Jason agreed, initialing the line.



"Good.  Next line.  You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have
an attorney present during questioning."



"Check," Jason said, initialing.



"If you cannot afford an attorney, the County of Fresno will provide one for
you at no cost."



"I understand."



"And finally, if you decide to speak without the presence of an attorney,
you can stop questioning at anytime and request an attorney."



"I get it," Jason said, scratching his initials.



"Outstanding," Miller told him, smiling broadly.  He shook his head in
amusement.  "Sometimes the paperwork is just a hindrance to things, you know
what I mean?"



"I sure do," Jason assured him.



"Okay," Miller said, taking the Miranda warning that Jason had signed and
making it disappear.  "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, one last
piece of paperwork."  He pulled another form from his briefcase and then
nearly chanted, "Having been informed of your rights, do you agree to speak
with me now, without the presence of an attorney?"



Jason smiled.  "No."



"Okay," Miller said.  "If you'll just sign...."  He paused, confused.  "Did
you say no?"



"I did," Jason affirmed.  "I will not speak to you any further without an
attorney present."



"Look, Jason," Miller said.  "This is just routine paperwork.  We fill it
out for everyone we interview.  It doesn't mean..."



"Let's cut the bullshit, Miller," Jason interrupted.  "I'm not some dirtbag
off of the streets that you think popped off one of his drug customers
because he didn't pay the money that he owed for a front.  I'm a cop, just
like you are.  If you're reading me my rights, it's because you think I
killed Buckingham.  If I'm now considered a suspect, I'm not saying another
word without a lawyer present."



Miller stared at him for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts.  The
interview was not going as he had anticipated.  A veteran interrogator, he
quickly recovered and changed tactics.  "All right," he said.  "We'll cut
the bullshit, as requested.  You're right.  I am being forced to consider
you as a suspect, as much as it pains me to have to think that about another
cop."  He took a deep breath.  "The simple fact of the matter is that I'm
trying to be your advocate here.  You could get yourself in a lot of trouble
by not cooperating with me and believe me, I don't want to see that happen.
We've turned up some disturbing pieces of forensic evidence at the crime
scene and we've gotten a couple of witness statements from the motel room
that places you and your wife there.  We know that the story you told about
how you and your wife were in the hotel room all night is a bunch of
bullshit and we need to have this explained or we're probably gonna have to
book you for the murder of Buckingham.  You'll be booked into the jail and
at the very least, end up losing your job.  Now maybe you two were just
following Buckingham around, waiting for him to try and rape another girl or
something.  Or maybe you had some part in what happened to him but it was a
mistake of some kind.  That part is unclear but we need to hear what you
really did that night."



Miller, Jason realized, was good.  He was trying to get him to admit that he
had been at the motel that night, just enough of an admission to blow the
lid off of the case.   Even though he knew that detectives were allowed to
lie to suspects in the interrogation room and to make up non-existent
evidence, the allegation that they could place him and Janet at the motel
was frightening.  The unschooled, he knew, would quickly start blabbering
and Miller would have a signed confession within two hours.  But Jason was
not the unschooled.



"If you're going to arrest me," Jason said simply.  "Then go ahead and do
it.  I won't say another word to you without a lawyer present."



"Jason," Miller said, flustered.  "You have to work with...."



"Be careful," Jason warned, pointing at the pinhole in the door.  "This is
all being recorded you know.  If you press much further, you're gonna get
your case thrown out for illegal interrogation."



Miller stared at him for a moment.  "Okay," he finally said, disgusted.
"This interview is terminated.  Wait here until I see what we're going to do
next."



He left the room, leaving Jason locked in and alone with his thoughts.



Jason hoped Janet was holding up.  They would throw the big guns at her.







+++++





"...and having been informed of your rights," Miller read to her
mechanically.  "Do you agree to speak to me now, without the presence of an
attorney?"



"No I do not," Janet said, firmly though with obvious nervousness in her
voice.



"You don't wish to speak to me?" Miller asked, his voice steady but a smile
behind his eyes.  Janet had not actually asked for an attorney, which meant
he could keep talking for the moment.  As Jason had suspected, he intended
to use Janet to break the case open.  That was why he had interviewed her
last.



"No, I do not," she repeated, wringing her hands.



"I think you're making a mistake, Janet," he told her, shaking his head.
"Some very disturbing things have turned up in the investigation."



"Oh?" she asked.  "Like what?"



"Witness statements," Miller told her, "that place you and Jason at the
motel that night.  We also have collected some forensic evidence from
inside.  You two were very careful in there, but you weren't quite careful
enough."



"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him, averting her eyes as
she did so.



Miller, figuring he had her in his sights, delivered the coup de grace.
"It's all over," he said.  "Your husband is now cooperating with us."



"What do you mean?"



"I mean that he's talking.  Look Janet, believe it or not, we're trying to
help you two here.  Jason is a cop, just like we are.  We don't want to see
a cop or his wife go to jail.  Not over some scumbag rapist.  We explained
this to your husband and told him about the evidence we'd found and he
agreed that your story needed to be modified some.  It needs to be explained
what you two were doing at that motel room with Buckingham.  If that's not
satisfactorily explained, we're gonna have to book you two into the jail on
a murder charge."



"A murder charge?" Janet said, alarm in her voice.



"Yes."  He nodded, sensing the kill.  "Now maybe you two were just following
Buckingham around, waiting for him to try and rape another girl.  Or maybe
you went to that motel room with other intentions and some kind of accident
occurred.  But we need to know, you understand, if we're going to help you.
Jason's job and freedom are hanging in the balance here.  Yours too."



Janet sat silently for a moment, pondering what she was being told.  Could
it be true?  Surely after all the warnings he had given her about talking to
the detectives after they read her the Miranda warning, he would not begin
cooperating.  He had explained that they would lie to her, that it was
allowed legally, but Miller sounded so convincing.  Was it possible to lie
so well?



"So what do you say, Janet?" Miller prompted.  "How about we start from the
beginning and work this thing out?"



Janet looked at him, trying to see what was going on behind the detective's
eyes.  She saw nothing.  She had trusted Jason this far, she would just have
to carry that one more step.  "No," she said firmly.  "I don't wish to speak
with you any more."



Miller lowered his head, flustered.  "Janet," he said, "I told you..."



"Excuse me," she interrupted, bolder now.  "Didn't you just read me a
statement and have me sign it?  Didn't it say I could stop questioning at
anytime?"



"Yes, but..."



"Then that's what I'm doing," she told him.  "This is all getting a little
deep.  I want a lawyer before I say anything else."



Miller gave her a crooked smile.  "All right, Janet," he said softly.  "The
interview is at an end.  Wait here while we figure out what to do with you."





+++++





Jason waited ninety minutes before the door to his interrogation room
re-opened and Sergeant Miller poked his head in.



"Jason," he said tonelessly.  "Will you come with me please?"



He stood up, stretching his legs as he did so.  "Am I under arrest now?"



Miller offered him a slanted smile but said nothing.  He walked off down the
hall, taking it on faith that Jason would follow.  Jason did.  He was led
through a serious of hallways, down a flight of stairs, through the empty
patrol briefing room and finally to a small break room that adjoined it.



The break room looked pretty much as the one in the Marshall Sheriff's
Department's north station where he worked.  A large industrial coffee maker
that smelled of overcooked coffee.  A few vending machines that distributed
sodas and candy bars.  A microwave oven.  A few scarred chairs and tables to
sit at.  Janet was sitting at one of the chairs, her face carefully
composed.  Detective Wilson stood next to her, sipping at a cup of coffee.
As they entered the room, Wilson retreated, sharing an uninterpretable look
with Miller before sliding out the door.  Jason looked at Janet, trying to
gleam some sense of understanding from her face.



Miller shut the door behind him and waved Jason to the table where Janet
sat.  "Have a seat."



He stared at him for a moment, debating what track his attitude should take.
Finally he pulled a chair out and sat down.  Miller pulled a chair over from
another table and joined them.



"Congratulations," Miller told them.  "You've done what you set out to do."



Jason and Janet looked at each other for a moment and then looked back at
Miller.



"I beg your pardon?" Jason finally asked.



"The murder of Chad Buckingham," he said, staring at them intently.  "You've
gotten away with it.  At least for now.  You have successfully called my
bluff."



"Look, Miller," Jason said.  "I don't know what kind of...."



Miller held up his hand.  "It's okay," he told them.  "Look around.  We're
in the break room, not an interrogation room.   No recording devices of any
kind are in operation.  This conversation is completely off the record.  I
will ask you no more questions about Buckingham's death and I implore you
not to volunteer me any information that I would be forced to act upon."  He
took a deep breath.  "My congratulations are sincere."



"I'm not sure what you mean," Jason, dumbfounded, finally replied.



"Of course you don't," Miller answered.  "So let me explain it to you.  I
know that you two killed Buckingham."



Jason started to interrupt but was cut-off.  "You don't need to protest,"
Miller said quickly.  "Like I said, this is not an interrogation.  You are
not talking to Sergeant Miller, homicide investigator for the Fresno Police
Department right now.  You're talking to Gary Miller, a forty-eight year old
man and father of two, including a daughter, who has spent his career
observing what a pile of shit our justice system in this country is.  A
justice system that would allow a sixteen-year-old girl to be brutally raped
and probably scarred for life and that does nothing to pursue her rapist
because he happens to be a football hero.  And let me assure you, Gary
Miller applauds what you two have done and wants to know nothing more about
how you've done it.  Gary Miller sees absolutely nothing in the world wrong
with the removal of a piece of excrement like Buckingham from society.
Since our so-called justice system wouldn't do it, he's glad that someone
like yourselves had the courage to do it anyway.  He's also glad that you
had the intelligence to do it in the manner in which you did.  A manner
which allows Sergeant Miller, the homicide detective, to try his damnedest
to arrest and convict you two for this crime, and to fail at this task."



He paused, his eyes warming up slightly now.  "You see, I really did pull
out all the stops in this investigation.  I had no other choice.  This is a
high profile case, everyone is watching and no slip-ups would be tolerated.
My men did the same.  The crime scene was combed over with a fine tooth
comb.  We interviewed anyone who might have known anything.   We back
tracked your trail for the last three days and did the same for Buckingham.
I used my very best interrogation techniques once I got you two in here.
And in the end, I'm glad to say, you've beaten me.



"The crime scene was immaculate.  It raised a lot of questions you know but
it provided absolutely no answers.  We know that Buckingham's trail ended
abruptly at the CSUF gym on Friday night.  We have multiple witnesses who
saw him working out there.  We have two freshman girls who said he invited
them to a party that night.  Beyond that, he disappeared completely until
his body was found later that night in the motel room.  A motel room that he
didn't rent.  However you managed to get him there, you did it completely
without observation.  Nobody saw him leave the campus, nobody saw him enter
the motel room.  Nobody saw you two at or anywhere near the City of Fresno
that night.  I checked everything trying to come up with just a single fact
that could place you in this fair city.  That right there would have been
enough to propel this thing forward.  I checked your cell phone usage for
the night in question.  Neither one of you made a call.  I checked your
financial transactions, which turned up one interesting thing, the fact that
Jason withdrew three hundred dollars from his savings account the day before
Buckingham's death."  He shook his head and waggled his finger comically.
"Awfully suspicious, Mr. Whitecoff," he admonished playfully.  "Especially
since you charged your hotel room, especially since Mr. Buckingham's room
was rented with cash, specifically twenty dollar bills.  But it's nothing
that I can hang my hat on without any corroborating evidence.  I'm sure you
have a reasonable, non-verifiable explanation for why you withdrew that
money.  Don't bother telling me.  I don't want to know.



"But that's all just icing on the cake.  The masterpiece of this whole deal
is the cause of death."  He smiled, admiration obvious in his expression.
"Whatever you did to Buckingham, it has gone completely undetected.  The
coroner cannot even determine what the cause of death was.  In the absence
of any evidence of murder, which is pretty much where we stand at this
point, his death is not even going to be ruled as a homicide.  Unknown
cause, suspicious, is how it's going to classified for now.  Whatever you
did, it was brilliant and I salute you.  If you had left me even a single
crumb of evidence, if you'd said a single wrong thing in the interrogation
room, I would have at least been able to get a search warrant and check your
cars and your houses.  But you didn't even give me enough for that.  Any
judge would've laughed at my probable cause."



"So what happens now?"  Jason, dumbfounded by this speech asked.



"Now," Miller said brightly.  "You two go home and go about your lives.
Janet, you should be clear and free as far as your job goes.  Jason, you
might have a few minor problems with the Sheriff's department."



"Oh?" Jason said, raising his eyebrows.



"Well," Miller said apologetically.  "As I said, I was forced to pull out
all the stops during the investigation.  One of the steps I had to take was
to call your department's internal affairs division and request that they
make an inquiry into whether or not you've been using the department's
computers to gather information on Buckingham.  They got back to me the next
day and informed me that neither you nor anyone else has run Buckingham's
name through the system.  So that avenue was closed off for our
investigation but unfortunately your internal affairs division has been
officially told that you were a suspect in the death of Buckingham.  I
imagine that they'll have a few questions for you when you go back to work."



"Great," Jason muttered, already anticipating such an interview.



"But I wouldn't worry too much," Miller pointed out.  "Like I said before,
we don't have any evidence that a crime took place.  I imagine that your
union contract is pretty much the same as ours is in regards to IA
investigation.  They can compel you to take a polygraph exam only when there
is evidence that wrongdoing has been done.  You've broken no departmental
rules that they would be able to prove and there is no criminal evidence
that a murder took place.  If you can handle me in this matter, then I
imagine that you can handle them."



"I suppose I can," Jason agreed.



"So that's about it then," Miller concluded.  "The Buckingham file will be
kept of course but it won't even go on the books as a homicide unless
something turns up.  And I pretty much doubt that anything further is going
to turn up."  He paused.  "I do have one favor to ask of you though."



"And what might that be?" Jason enquired.



"I'm retiring in two more years.  Once that occurs I'll be just another
civilian."



"Uh huh," Jason said.



"Let's say that my curiosity is quite piqued.  What I'd really like to do is
come by your house after I've retired and maybe talk about the various ways
that someone could be killed without leaving a trace of evidence."



Jason stared at him for a moment.  "Well, Sergeant Miller," he said with a
smile.  "Since Janet and I had nothing whatsoever to do with Buckingham's
death, I don't think I could help you in that regard."  He considered.  "But
if you were to drop by sometime say, maybe three years or so after you're
retired, maybe we could have a few beers together and converse about a few
things.  Who knows, maybe we could come up with a way that something like
that could be done."



"I'll be looking forward to it," Miller smiled, standing up.  Janet and
Jason did the same.  "In the meantime," he said, extending his hand and
shaking with both of them.  "Via con dios.   You're both free to go.  Thank
you for your time."



"No," Jason said.  "Thank you."



They left a few minutes later and they went about their lives.





THE END      5-14-98 to 10-11-98

-- 
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