“Captain, I have the information on the Strum call.”
“Go ahead.”
She consulted her pad. “The phone was answered by Roger Strum, Melanie’s stepfather. When I explained the purpose of the call, he expressed confusion, then anger at the fact that we didn’t already know that Melanie was dead. His wife, Dana Strum, joined the conversation on the extension. They were upset. They provided the following facts: Acting on a tip, the Palm Beach police had entered the home of Jordan Ballston and discovered Melanie’s body in a basement freezer. The police-”
Kline interrupted. “Jordan Ballston, the hedge-fund guy?”
“There was no specific mention of a hedge fund, but in my follow-up call to the Palm Beach PD, they did say Ballston lived in a multi-million-dollar mansion.”
“The fucking freezer?” muttered Blatt, as though food-contamination concerns were making him queasy.
“Okay,” said Rodriguez, “keep going.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Strum mostly went on about how outraged they were that Ballston was out on bail. Who was he paying off? Did he have the judge in his pocket? Remarks like that. Mr. Strum indicated that if Ballston managed to buy himself out of this, he would personally ‘put a bullet in the bastard’s head.’ He repeated that several times. I was able to ascertain that they did have an argument with Melanie on May sixth, the day she left home, about a car she wanted them to buy for her-a Porsche Boxster that costs forty-seven thousand dollars. They say that she flew into a rage when they refused, said she hated them, didn’t want to live with them anymore, didn’t want to speak to them anymore. She said she was going to live with a friend. The following morning she was gone. The next time they saw her was when they ID’d the body in the Palm Beach morgue.”
“You said the local cops were acting on a tip when they found the body,” said Gurney. “Do we know anything more about that?”
She glanced at Rodriguez, apparently to confirm Gurney’s right to ask questions.
“Go ahead,” said the captain, with obvious mixed feelings.
She hesitated. “I told the chief investigating officer in Palm Beach that we had an interest in the case and we’d like as much information as possible. He said he’d be willing to talk to the person in charge of whatever investigation we had going on up here. He said he’d be available for the next half hour.”
After a few minutes of waffling on the pros and cons, the DA and the captain agreed that the call, with whatever information exchange would occur, would be a net plus all around. The conference room’s landline phone was moved to the center of the table around which they were all seated. Gerson dialed the direct number she’d been given by the detective in Palm Beach. She explained to him briefly who was in the room, then pushed the speakerphone button.
Rodriguez deferred to Kline, who provided the names and titles of the people at the table and described the case as a possible missing-persons investigation in its earliest stages.
The faint southern accent of the man on the other end made him sound like he might be a native Floridian, a rare breed in that state and almost unheard-of in Palm Beach. “Being alone in my office here, I feel kind of outnumbered. I’m Detective Lieutenant Darryl Becker. I understand from the officer I spoke to earlier that you folks would like to know more about the Strum murder.”
“We sure would appreciate knowing as much as you can tell us, Darryl,” said Kline, who seemed to be absorbing and reflecting Becker’s drawl. “One question we have right off the bat here-what kind of tip was it that led you fellas to the body?”
“Not a particularly voluntary one.”
“How so?”
“The gentleman who offered the information was not what you’d call a public-spirited citizen helping out the forces of good. He acquired his information in a somewhat compromising manner.”
“The hell’s he talking about?” murmured Blatt, not quite under his breath.
“How so?” repeated Kline.
“Man’s a burglar. A professional burglar. That’s what he does for a living.”
“He was caught in Ballston’s house?”
“No, sir, he wasn’t. He was apprehended emerging from another house a week after breaking into the Ballston place. Burglar’s name happens to be Edgar Rodriguez-no relative of your captain there, I’m sure.”
A snorting one-syllable laugh burst out of Blatt.
The captain’s jaw muscles bulged. The remark seemed to anger him far out of proportion to its mindlessness.
“Let me guess,” said Kline. “Edgar was looking at serious prison time, and he offered to trade some information about Ballston’s basement, something he’d seen there, for a more lenient approach to his situation?”
“That would be it in a nutshell, Mr. Kline. By the way, how do you spell that?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your name. How do you spell your name?”
“K-L-I-N-E.”
“Ah, with a K.” Becker sounded disappointed. “Thought it might be like Patsy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Patsy Cline. Not important. Sorry for the diversion. Go ahead with your questions.”
It took Kline a moment to get back on track. “So… what he told you was sufficient for a warrant?”
“It was indeed.”
“And when you exercised that warrant, you found what?”
“Melanie Strum. In two pieces. Wrapped in aluminum foil. In the bottom of a freezer chest. Underneath a hundred pounds of chicken breasts. And a fair amount of frozen broccoli.”
Hardwick produced a snorting laugh of his own, louder than Blatt’s.
Kline looked baffled. “Why was your burglar unwrapping aluminum foil packages at the bottom of a freezer?”
“He said it’s the first place he always looks. He said people think it’s the last place a burglar would look, so that’s where they put their valuable stuff. He said you want to find the diamonds, look in the freezer. He thought it was pretty funny, all those people thinking they had a bright idea, thinking they were going to fool him, thinking they were smarter than he was. Had a good laugh about it.”
“So he went to the freezer and started unwrapping the body, and-”
“Actually,” Becker interrupted, “he started unwrapping the head.”
Various guttural exclamations of disgust around the room were followed by a silence.
“You gentlemen still there?” There was a touch of amusement in Becker’s voice.
“We’re here,” said Rodriguez coldly. There was another silence.
“You gentlemen have any more questions, or does that pretty much wrap up your missing-person case?”
“I have a question,” said Gurney. “How’d you make the positive ID?”
“We got a DNA near hit on the sex-offender segment of the NCIC database.”
“Meaning a close family member?”
“Yep. Turned out to be Melanie’s biological heroin-addict father, Damian Clark, who’d been convicted of rape, aggravated sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor, and several other unpleasant offenses about ten years ago. We tracked down the mother, who had divorced her rapist husband and remarried a man by the name of Roger Strum. She came down and ID’d the body. We also took a DNA sample from her and got a first-degree family confirmation like we did with the biological father. So there’s no doubt about the identity of the murdered girl. Any other questions?”
“You have any doubt about the identity of the murderer?” asked Gurney.
“Not a lot. There’s just something about Mr. Ballston.”
“The Strums seem pretty upset that he’s out on bail.”
“Not as upset as I am.”
“He managed to convince the judge he’s not a flight risk?”
“What he managed to do was post a ten-million-dollar bail bond and agree to what amounts to house arrest. He has to remain within the confines of his estate here in Palm Beach.”