…

Detective Bryson interviews Stacey Bergman

…

If there was one thing Bryson hated, it was informing the next of kin of a death.  And particularly when that next of kin hated the victim.

He had to admit, going up in the elevator in what was a sumptuous and expensive building of apartments, that the ex, in this case, had done very well out of the marriage breakup.

A quick search of the internet, as background, he discovered she was to battle him over what appeared to be hidden assets, and endure some rather terrible disclosures on her post-separation behaviour, in the process, but 20 million plus a penthouse worth 10 million more could make that humiliation bearable.

As for Bergman himself, and his role in the divorce proceedings, Bryson was not expecting much cooperation.

He had also called ahead knowing that unless he had a purpose to be there, he would not get inside the front entrance, let alone get up to the apartment to see her.  Security, in the wake of the divorce revelations, made getting into the building the same as entry to Fort Knox.

That advance call told him almost everything he needed to know about her.  If this was in medieval times, he would be wearing a full suit of armour.

He steeled himself, then rang the doorbell.

The door was opened by a maid, dressed in a maid outfit.  Who insisted on that convention these days?

“Detective Bryson to see Mrs Bergman.”

“You might want to rethink how you address her.  It’s now Ms Hollingworth.”  A look of disdain on the maid’s face told him the weather inside the apartment was cold, with a wind chill factor of minus ten.

“Right.”

The maid stepped to one side and let him pass.

Just inside was a small vestibule, and a second set of concertina doors now open, displaying a rather ornate living space with marble floors, spectacular views of the city, and scattered works of art that screamed expensive.

Bergman was paying dearly for the divorce.  One article suggested he needed better lawyers.

The maid closed the concertina doors leaving him alone in the room.

For about three minutes.

Mrs Bergman, no, get it right, Ms Hollingworth, no, damned if he was going to call her Ms Hollingworth, swept into the room, nothing short of a grand entrance.

Stacey Bergman, now Hollingsworth, was a chorus girl before she became a trophy wife.  Yes, the trashy press still ran stories like that, and Bryson still read the trashy press, not only for the salacious stories but for information that could prove useful when dealing with society.

But that fanciful group were, he concluded a long time ago, the same as everyone else except they had money to burn.  But like everyone else, they still had the same failings, jealousy, greed, and the one difference to the common man, they could afford to hire someone else to commit the crime, and then hire the best lawyers to divert the blame.

This woman before him was everything that was wrong in the world.

She stopped by the settee, put her hands on the back-head rest and surveyed him, a look of distaste on her face.

He told himself not to be fazed by such intimidation.

“What is it that couldn’t be said on the telephone?”

“I regret to inform you that your ex-husband, James Bergman is dead.  I am sorry for your loss.”

He had expected some form of an emotional response, but she didn’t even blink.  He had a feeling she probably never felt anything for him.

“Don’t be.  I’m glad the bastard is dead.”

“Be that as it may, we are treating his death as suspicious, and in doing so we will be interviewing everyone he has been in contact with recently.  Can you tell me where you were between 10pm yesterday and 5am this morning?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Defiance.  He’d expected as much.

“No.  Not here.  But I could have an arrest warrant issued and we could do it downtown after a discreet call to certain members of the press, but I think you’re more reasonable than that.  Be assured, this is a murder investigation, and I will do what I have to.”

He wasn’t initially going to go hard on her, but she was typical of the over-privileged who believed the rules were different for them.  He could also feel the intense dislike for him in her unblinking stare, while she considered his words.

“I was here, at home.”

“Can anyone corroborate that, like your maid?”

“No.  You have my word.”

He tried hard not to let his contempt for her position show though.

“When was the last time you saw your ex-husband?”

“About a week ago at my lawyer’s office.  Another round of talks that fell on deaf ears.”

“No communications since?”

“One phone call two days ago with another ridiculous offer so I told him he could go to hell.”

There was hostility in her tone.  The hostility could fuel a motive for murder.

“A word of advice.  You might want to keep your legal team on standby because you’re high on the list of suspects.  Given the hostility you’re harbouring, you have a motive.  Not having corroboration of your movements at the time of the murder doesn’t help your case.  I suggest you try to be less hostile and more cooperative.  Don’t leave the city, I will have more questions.”

The man opened the concertina doors. His interview was over.

Or was it. 

“Something else that comes to mind, Detective.  He had a girlfriend, I didn’t hear what her name was, or who she is, other than once when I heard him making a date at a restaurant in the city, in one of the Hilton’s.  Probably got a room too.  If he cheated on her too, maybe she had a good reason to kill him.  I didn’t care that much because I needed him alive so I could take him for everything he owns.”

Succinct, and quite possibly the truth, Bryson thought.  He wouldn’t be much good to her dead if she was in it for the humiliation.

“If you do think of a name, call me.”  He left his card on the table, then remembered something else he needed from her.  “Do you have your husband’s phone number, and the name and location of his business?”

Another long stare at him, a withering glance to a lesser man he thought, then she went over a desk by the far wall, pulled out a monogrammed piece of notepaper from one of the drawers and scribbled on it.

She held it out and he came over to collect it.  A phone number and a business name.  “Don’t know the address?”

“Brooklyn somewhere, I think.  Didn’t really care.  I have no head for business, and he had no interest in telling me.”

An odd arrangement, but then, some wives were like that.  “Thank you.”

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.

This might give some clues to the players, and the events.

…

So, the question is, how did I find myself in such a situation.

It came down to choices, as it always does.

And, from the very moment I met Wendy Mauson, I knew life with her, if it came to pass, would be interesting.

She was a popular girl; one of the cheer squad that made their presence felt at most sports.  Her usual boyfriend was Garry Frobish, star quarterback and mainstay of the football team.  I played basketball, after a fashion, because I had not had the necessary growth spurt in those vital teen years, I found myself relegated to guard, of which there were many.

How did we meet?  By accident.  Garry, Wendy, and I were all at the same party, Garry made a mistake, they had a huge fight, and I was there.  It was not one of those right time right-place events, she just picked me as the most level-headed of those on offer that night.  But, I had no illusions, and whilst it was on again and off again over the next year, her real interest, and love of her life was Garry.

So, how did I finish up with Wendy?  Wendy and Garry came together as a couple at the prom, and it looked like it was a perfect match.  Until he got her pregnant, she wouldn’t get rid of the baby and he dumped her.  Who was next, me.  Did I know she was pregnant?  No.  That I discovered much later, at a hospital in tragic circumstances.

But, blissfully ignorant, and universally loved by her family, we were married.  And not long after a son, Dale, was born.

I should have recognised the signs in the few months after the birth, where she was rather self-absorbed for a time.  Had I investigated it, I would have discovered that she had been seeing Garry again, but that, too, wasn’t discovered until much later too.

But despite the ups and downs, we managed to get along as a family once she settled into the idea of being a mother until Dale was old enough to go to school.  Then she went back to work, in the office of the company that was owned by Garry’s parents.

I thought it a coincidence, but, like I said, she managed to keep it all under a shroud of secrecy for many years.

Until the unlikely happened, as it always does.  Secrets are not secrets if more than one person knows about it, and if there are more, well, it doesn’t take long for it to become common knowledge.

One of Dale’s friends told him, under the category of ‘can you keep a secret’, that my wife and Garry were ‘old’ friends, and that it had been going on for years.  How this ‘friend’ knew about it was never explained, but it turned out to be true.

I spoke to her about it, and she assured me that, yes, they did meet, but it was not like ‘that’.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt but followed her a few times observing them together, and it seemed to be as she said.

Then Dale was killed.  It was a senseless accident that in any other situation would have seen him walk away with just a few scratches.   He was rushed to the hospital and since he was a rare blood type, they tested me, and his mother.  Neither of us was a match, which seemed odd.  But even when they found a donor, in actual fact Garry, though I didn’t know it at the time, it was too late.  In fact, when I identified the body, there was not a mark on him.  He had sustained a slight bump to the head which activated an aneurysm.

A week after, when we had the funeral, and everyone came, commiserated, and left, the doctor remained.  An old basketball friend, he gave me a piece of paper and told me to read it later.  I did.  DNA proved that Dale was Garry and Wendy’s son, not mine.

Even then, I was willing to let it go.  Wendy had taken Dale’s death hard and decided the only way she could recover was to go away for a while.  And not with me.  Not a surprise, because we had been arguing a lot, over money, and the way she spent it like it was water, and I thought she had found someone else, and that was who she was going away with.

But, taking her sister was supposed to throw me off the scent.

I guess if you were going to try and continue hiding a secret relationship, you would take steps to prevent the other from finding out.  Perhaps her grief had got in the way and clouded her thinking, or she was just in a hurry to leave.

Three weeks later, a phone bill arrived at home, for a phone I certainly didn’t have, so it had to be hers.  On it were calls and texts to two numbers, one was Garry’s, the other to a man who was simply a code name.  Whilst she had left me numbers of the places she was staying, and with instructions only to call if someone was dying, I did try once, and a man answered.

I put two and two together.

And kept it to myself.  Along with all of the evidence, which consisted of a number of accounts, one from a hotel, several from car rental companies and a rental agreement for a flat, one that cost a considerable amount each month, and, when I checked through the finances, which I left her in charge of, I discovered large discrepancies in what she said we had, and what was there.

And, with all the accounts from her recovery ‘holiday’ put on the ‘no limit’ credit card which had to be paid, it took what was left.  I was left with the choice of going bankrupt or selling assets.  I did the latter, first the condominium in Bermuda, and then the lakeside holiday shack by the lake up country.  We rarely used either, so I took the gamble she wouldn’t find out.

Then she came back, I handed the accounts back to her and said nothing.  As far as she was aware, the main accounts had sufficient funds to pay the bills, and any money I’d earned in her absence had been squirrelled away.

Perhaps, by that time, I could see the end was nigh.

As it was when Garry was found murdered and set off the chain of events that saw me being implicated in his murder, by Wendy, but for reasons she thought I didn’t know about.

That was about to change when I was summoned to a meeting at her lawyer’s office.  I didn’t know she personally had one.  Then, there was a lot about Wendy I knew nothing about.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.

Here’s the third part, the Opportunity

Where was I last night between 9pm and 3am?

Not with my wife, Wendy. She had gone out before 6 pm, about the time I got home from work. No, she didn’t really say where she was going, or if she did, given the list of the past, I didn’t believe her.

Where was I?

Home, alone.

Could anyone corroborate that?

Sadly no.  Isn’t that always the way, though?

But, the car I was driving was a company car. It had a GPS and tracking system, part of so-called security measures put in by the company I worked for, but in reality there to check after-hours use.

The GPS would show I never left home.  Using the car, that is.

The only other car had been taken by Wendy so the reality was, I hadn’t left home. The other car, the off-road vehicle was in the workshop, still waiting to be repaired. It was the car our son had been killed in, and neither of us had the heart to do anything with it.

But…

Apparently, I had a visitor.

James Burgman had been seen outside my house at 10:30 pm, his car had been found two blocks away in the car park, away from the street, and he was found dead, shot by a gun that used 9mm bullets, at 4:45 am the next morning.

No. I had not been seen leaving the house, but it had been ascertained that it was possible to leave and not be seen, if I tried hard enough.

I hadn’t and had no reason to, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Sitting in the interview room, purportedly to help the police in their enquiries, Detective John Sanderson had detailed quite succinctly how I had a motive, the means, and the opportunity.

Little else mattered, particularly the fact I didn’t do it. It was only a matter of time before the gun was found.

So, there I sat in the station, waiting for a series of test results to come back, mainly gunshot residue on me and on my clothes, not just those I was wearing, but everything I owned.

In the end, there was nothing. They couldn’t prove I left home, or that I shot him. Not then. I was advised not to leave the city, that I was a person of interest.

When I asked whether my wife, Wendy, had been subjected to the same interrogation, the atmosphere changed, and Sanderson had rounded on me quite savagely.

“Her innocence is not in question. In fact, you would not be here if it wasn’t for her statement. She honestly believes you shot him out of pure jealousy, and, quite frankly Mr Winters, so do I, and it will only be a matter of time before I find the evidence to convict you.  Now, get out of my sight.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.

Here’s the second part, the so-called Means

Everyone knew I had a gun.  It was locked away in a safe that was not in an obvious position in the dressing room at home.

Several years ago our neighbourhood had been subjected to several breaking and several people had been injured, prompting the rest of us to seriously consider getting protection.

I got a Glock 19, 9 mm along with several of my neighbours and then both Wendy and I got lessons so we knew how to use it properly, and avoid shooting either each other or in our feet.

The thing is, there had only been that one round of breaking, and since the gun was put away on the safe about eighteen months ago, it had not seen the light of day since.

Or so I thought.

When asked to check if it was still there, it wasn’t, much to my surprise.

Equally, to my surprise, the bullet that killed James Burgman was a nine millimetre.  Was that a coincidence, I didn’t think so.

© Charles Heath 2019-2023