Who Did It?

"If he didn't, I wonder who did. We need to see what is on the camera. Also, we need a list of other people who stayed at the motel the last two nights. Maybe there might have been a witness. By the way, do we have any information on the male victim?" I asked Bobbie.

"His name is Tony Williams, early forties, married and works at the same insurance office," replied Bobbie.

Since Mark's mom had temporary custody of the kids she was allowed to keep them till this case was over. Susan's parents really didn't want anything to do with them.

The next day Bobbie came in with all the pictures. Mark had a digital camera with over a hundred pictures on it. All of them were of Susan with different men. There had to be at least twenty different men. Our first thought was that maybe she was a prostitute. Eventually we figured out she just liked to have sex with different men.

In a number of photos the men were taking liberties before even going into the motel room. It was a wonder Mark didn't go off the deep end. He told us later that he kept thinking of his kids to keep his sanity.

We headed over to the Insurance agency where Susan worked. Many of the men in the pictures were employed there. We were greeted by Mary Brandt. She was the receptionist, mid-forties, dressed overly sexy for an insurance office, but very nice looking for her age. She paged Mr. Davis, Susan's father who tried to tell us about wasting our time. We had the killer and needed to prosecute him. We asked Mr. Davis if we could talk to him in private. He took us into his office and we sat down.

"What the hell is this all about?" asked Mr. Davis.

"Well, Sir, there is a slight chance that Mark might not have been the killer. We have to close a few doors before filing the charges. We have photos of your daughter with other men. Unfortunately we have to talk to them and many of them work here," I replied.

"Bullshit! You have your damn killer," he screamed at me.

I took some of the photos of his daughter with a few of the men in the agency with them going into motel rooms. "Here, Mr. Davis, I didn't want to bring this up but we have more pictures of your daughter with other men."

"I can't believe this was going on in my own business, my own daughter. These son-of-bitches are going to pay."

"Mr. Davis, we need to talk to these men. What you do afterwards is not our business, but we need to talk with them all now."

Mr. Davis called his secretary and she led us to a room and had twelve different men from the agency come in one at a time and talk with us. They all said about the same thing. Most of these men were either married or divorced; none were single. Makes you wonder how many divorces might come from this one woman's sex addiction. Why are so many men so weak?

"She started strutting her stuff in front of everyone. Hell, she was a good looking piece of ass. She would sit at her desk and spread her legs, showing off that pussy. How can anyone not take advantage of her? On top of everything else, she was the boss's daughter. That alone made it worthwhile." A number of responses were very similar to that one.

"She was always showing off her pussy. What's a guy to do?" said some.

A few men denied having sex with her till they were shown the pictures of them going into a motel with her.

A couple even said they wouldn't talk to us without an attorney present. We explained that we were just checking out leads but if they felt they needed an attorney present that we would oblige, but it would be made known and probably throw out a red flag. Most talked to us after that.

One guy, Bill, was in love with Susan. He wanted her to divorce Mark and he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. He was really mad when he found out most of the office had relations with Susan. When he found out she was having a date with Tony, he was really pissed. He loved her and she was going to have sex with a black man. Of course no one admitted to the shooting. We really did wonder about Bill. He was almost off the deep end. He was definitely on our short list, along with Mark, of course.

They about all asked if we were going to tell anyone about their actions with Susan. We just told them that we had a private report but that their boss knew about the situation. We knew it would be one messed up office after we left.

We still hadn't found any evidence to clear Mark. Actually he had all the more reason for revenge.

Our next stop was Tony's house. We needed to talk to the black male victim's wife. Tasheeka Williams was her name. A good looking black woman in her thirties. She came to the door in a somewhat sexy nightgown and a silk robe. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Mrs. Williams, we are with CSI crime team and have a few questions to ask you about your husband, Tony. First, we would like to convey our condolences. We know this is a bad time for you, but we have to gather whatever information we can as early as possible. May we come in?"

She looked a bit nervous but invited us in. We asked all the basic questions, including, of course, her whereabouts the night before.

"Look," she said. "Tony and I were talking about getting a divorce. We weren't getting along very well. He started cheating on me and I kicked his ass out a few days ago. I didn't kill him and besides didn't they catch the guy with the gun in his hand?" she asked.

"Yes, there is a suspect but we aren't sure he is the killer. We have to check all the evidence. Where were you last night, Mrs. Williams?"

Right then a man came through the hallway. "What's going on, Tasheeka? Who are these people?" the man asked.

"They're investigating Tony's murder. They want to know where I was last night," Tasheeka laughed.

"She was in bed with me fucking up a storm, if it's any of your fucking business," the big man replied.

"May I ask your name, sir?" I asked.

"'Angel White, if it's any of your fucking business. Tasheeka and I were here all night. Go check our fucking bed sheets if you want. Stupid fucking Tony gave up Tasheeka for that fat ass Tamara. What a fucking fool."

"Tamara? Who's Tamara?" I asked

"Tony's new girlfriend, or at least was. Didn't she get murdered at the same time with Tony?" Angel asked.

"Do you have Tamara's address? We would like to talk to her. In answer to your question, Tamara wasn't with Tony last night. Sorry, we can't tell you anymore right now."

Tasheeka said, "Better watch it when you go see Tamara. Damon, her husband, is a maniac. I don't know if he knows about Tony and Tamara."

Bobbie and I left Tasheeka's house. What a fucking mess. Mark's wife sleeps around with God knows how many guys. He could be facing two counts of murder. His wife's dad didn't know that twelve of his agents had slept with his daughter. One of the men, Bill, loved his daughter and was willing to divorce his own wife to marry her. The last man Susan slept with was a married black man whose wife kicked him out and was sleeping with another man already.

Now we find out Tony had a girlfriend and she is married. This sure wasn't as open and shut as the DA hoped for. We stopped by Mark's mother's house on the way back to the office. We had a couple of questions for her.

"Mrs. Moore, I'm Agent Jim Lee and this is my partner Agent Bobbie Burke. We are investigating Mark's case; may we have a word with you?" I asked.

"Sure, officer. Is my Mark alright? I know he didn't do that terrible thing he's being accused of. He's a good father and was a good husband. He just wanted a good marriage and nice family. I hate to talk about the dead, but Susan was a bad woman. She had two of the greatest little kids and never spent any time with them. Oh, I'm sorry, officer, I get to talking and I can't seem to stop. What can I help you with? Anything for my Mark," she replied.

"Do you know if Mark ever owned a gun?" I asked.

"Yes, he does. His father passed it down to him before he passed away. He keeps it here at my house. Come with me and I'll show it to you."

She unlocked a drawer and there was a 9mm Luger in the drawer. She said he kept the bullets in another room because of the kids. He did take it out to the shooting range once in awhile. He also owned two shotguns that were locked up in the basement if we would like to see them.

"Did you know he was going to confront Susan the other day?" I asked.

""Yes, he took his camera to take pictures. I told him not to go but of course he didn't listen to me. He just wanted out of his poor excuse for a marriage and to keep his kids. No way would he have shot Susan and that other man," she replied.

"Well, thank you, Mrs. Moore. You've been most helpful."

The following day we stopped by the Jail to see if Mark could remember anything else. He pretty much drew a blank. He said his attorney stopped by and told him to plead insanity. He told his lawyer he was pleading not guilty, because he didn't shoot anybody. We checked to see if he had any other visitors and his friend Carol from work had showed up two days in a row.

Bobbie went to see Carol and I was called down to the autopsy lab. We were right about the shooting and how they probably occurred. Both victims died from the shot to the head. Both had the bullets removed from their skulls. Susan also had the other bullet removed from her throat area. Then the doctor hit me with some disturbing news. They had run blood tests and both victims were HIV-Positive. The virus that causes aids. Now we had a whole new ball game. Was the shooter after Tony, Susan or both? Damn, this sure wasn't getting any easier. I called Mr. Williams up and told him he needed to get all his employees together that afternoon for a short meeting. The health department and a representative of their insurance company would be present. After he balked about it, I told him his daughter and Tony both had shown positive for HIV and he could have an epidemic if it is not caught quickly. He agreed to set up the meeting. I told him not to mention it to anyone. We had no idea where it started but everyone needed to be informed together.

Bobbie came back from talking to Carol. She told me that she believed Carol was in love with Mark. According to Carol, the two of them were the best of friends but had never been intimate. She was willing but Mark said he wanted to wait until after his divorce. He didn't want to cheat just because Susan did. Bobbie also told me that Carol said she was home alone the night of the shooting. I guess that leaves us with another possible suspect.

We attended the meeting of the insurance agency. There were approximately thirty employees in all. They were all at the meeting. I was the first to speak. I just told them that an autopsy was done on both Tony and Susan and both of them were HIV-Positive. The room went totally quite. It meant that anyone having sex with either of them might have the virus also.

The health inspector took over the talk. He explained that anyone having sex with either person needed to be tested for the virus. Also, any other people such as their husbands and wives would need to be tested, and of course anyone else they had unprotected sex with needed to be tested. He told everyone the results would be held in confidence. He did tell them that just because they had unprotected sex didn't mean they automatically had the virus.

The insurance representative for the company's health insurance stated that all tests would be covered by their insurance. If anyone chose not to have the tests at that time, it would not be covered for the tests for the next six months. They wanted to make sure they stopped any possible epidemic now. He did tell everyone that they had two days to inform their spouses or significant others and make appointments for their testing.

We recorded this meeting on a video tape. We wanted to see the expressions on the faces of the people. We were wondering if anyone knew about the virus before today.

About a third of the people went home without signing up for the tests. We hoped it was because they had monogamous marriages. It left approximately twenty employees to be tested. I could imagine what would happen when they went home to tell their spouses. I heard people say over and over, "They were neat and clean people. I would have never thought they were carriers."

Bobbie and I had a couple of more stops to make. We headed over to see Tamara and her husband. I knocked on their door and a heavy set black lady came to the door. I figured it was Tamara.

"Hello, I'm Agent Jim Lee, and this is Agent Bobbie Burke from the crime lab. Are you by any chance Tamara Grey?" I asked

"What do you want here?" she asked.

"We are investigating the shooting death of Tony Williams and another lady. Do you know Mr. Williams? We are told you are very close friends with him."

"You better leave before my husband gets here. Tony was just a friend,"

A car pulled up and a big black man got out.

"What's going on here? What are you people doing on my property?" asked the big guy."

"Mr. Grey, I'm Agent Lee and this is Agent Brandt from the crime lab. We are investigating the shooting death of Tony Williams."

"The mother fucker deserved to die. One time he tried to put the make on my Tamara but she didn't let him get close to her, did you, honey?"

"I just need to know where the two of you were last night between seven and ten o'clock," I said.

"What the fuck? I didn't kill the bastard. I might have if he ever came back to bother Tamara. I was hanging out with my home boys and Tamara was home watching the television. Now get the fuck off my property."

"Thank you for your time and, just so you know, Tony tested positive for HIV. Good thing Tamara said no to him." Tamara looked scared to death as we left. We wondered if she was going to tell her husband.

We notified Tony's wife about the virus so she and her latest boyfriend could get tested. We stopped by and let Mark know about the HIV testing. He shook his head and said he would get tested but he hadn't had sexual relations with Susan for about six months and the last two times she wanted him to wear a condom. He said he hadn't had sex with anyone else.

We stopped back at the office and watched the video of the insurance meeting. We wanted to see the faces of the people when the HIV was mentioned. Horror was on the faces of most of the employees. They all looked rather stunned, that is all except one person. We ran copies of pictures of a few of the individuals.

I was looking over at Bobbie while she was making copies of the pictures and thought what a nice looking gal she was. We were both single and had a lot in common. I thought about asking her out sometime; I definitely had to give it some serious thought.

The phone rang and it was the motel manager. He said he might have some information and a possible witness. The only problem was that it was a drunk. We told him we would be right over and drunk or not we needed to talk to him. We still wanted to know how the suspect got into the room without making noise. Surely two people don't go into a motel room, take off all their clothes and start having sex with the door open or even unlocked. Mark told us that he saw a person leave and left the door ajar. It makes more sense than anything else we had going, but how did they get into the room without a key?

We stopped in to see the motel manager and the clerk that was at the desk that night. We asked the clerk to explain everything he could remember about that night and to please leave nothing out.

The clerk began, "A good looking tall black man came in for his key. A woman reserved the room earlier in the day. He came up to the desk and he paid for the room so I gave him the key. He said, 'Thank you,' and left."

"So you never saw the woman?" I asked.

"Not then, I didn't, but a few minutes later a woman came in and asked for a second key. She said she would be going out and didn't want to disturb her boyfriend when she came back. I was a little surprised since she was white, but we have a lot of that going on nowadays. To each his own. She told me the correct room number and the name of her boyfriend so since he just left the office, I gave her the key."

I handed him the photos that Bobbie ran off and included two of Susan. "Do you see a picture of the woman you gave the key to here?"

The clerk looked through about a dozen pictures and handed me one. "This is her; a nice looking lady; she was dressed in black," the clerk replied.

"Are you sure, there's no doubt?" Bobbie asked.

"I'm positive. Why do you keep asking me?" the clerk responded.

"It's because the person you gave the key to was not the victim," Bobbie replied.

"Oh, my God, I didn't know. The police didn't let anyone near the room so I just assumed it was that woman."

"It's okay, you did the right thing in calling us. Where is the drunk gentleman you spoke of?"

The manager took me to a room around the corner and knocked on the door. "Fred, the police are here to see you," the manager said.

Fred opened the door and we introduced ourselves. Fred said that the night in question was a nice evening and he sat with his door open and was just having a beer when he heard what sounded like gunshots. He had his television on an old western and just thought he had it on too loud. A few seconds later a woman ran by his door, got into a car down the lane and sped off. She kind of tripped in front of the door and broke the heel on her shoe. He said he picked it up and set it on the dresser in case she came back for it. She never did.

"Didn't you hear sirens shortly after that? Did the police come and talk to you? When we came around the corner, your room was dark."

"I was half drunk. As soon as I picked up the heel, I closed my door and turned off the TV and the light and went to sleep. It wasn't till today that Bob, the manager, told me about the killing. He told me I should talk to you and that's about it. Don't know if it helps you any," Fred replied.

"Would you be able to identify her from a picture?"

"No, she just kind of ran by, except for the heel thing. She was wearing black and even had on a fancy kind of black hat."

"Was she a white or black woman?"

"White, I would say, but she could have been a light skinned black woman. As I said, I didn't see much. Sorry."

"Do you still have the heel of her shoe?" Bobbie asked.

"Yeah, it's right here...."

"Don't touch it anymore. We may be able to get prints off of it," I said.

Bobbie put on a pair of gloves and put the shoe heel in a plastic bag. We thanked Fred and the motel manager for their information. We now had another suspect with detail surrounding her. We headed back to the office and lab to piece our information together and to find out who owned the gun.

Bobbie took the heel to the print lab while I check on the gun ownership. The gun was registered to the victim, Tony Williams. Now we had to wonder how he was killed with his own gun. Bobbie returned with the finger print match on the shoe heel. There were two sets of prints. One belonging to Fred the alcoholic and another set belonging to our new suspect. We had to call a judge to get a search order ready. While we were wanting for the search order from the judge the DA showed up. He told us he could only hold Mark one more day or file charges against him. We told him we had another suspect and we were leaving with a search warrant. I told him to do what he had to do but we felt that he might have a new suspect in custody by morning.

Bobbie and I headed over to the home of Mary Brandt, the receptionist. I knew it was late in the evening but this couldn't wait. We had two sheriffs deputies with us. I knocked on the door and Mary Brandt looked surprised to see us.

"Mrs. Brandt, we have a search warrant to search your home," I said.