"I'd like to thank you all for coming," he said as the last chair scraped into position. "I think everybody knows everybody else, if only by reputation."
"Guess that covers Willy," Spraiger said to general laughter.
"Some of you," Joe continued after a pause, "are here because of the death of Hannah Shriver in Tunbridge. Others because of a thirty-two-year-old Brattleboro homicide. What connects them is an old gun that surfaced during a hostage negotiation several weeks ago here in town, along with the recent deaths of a woman in Orange and a man in Gloucester, Massachusetts, both of whom, like Hannah Shriver, were living in Brattleboro years ago when a shopkeeper named Klaus Oberfeldt was beaten to death and he and his wife were robbed of their life savings."
Gunther gestured to Ron. "Could you fire up that projector?"
The room's lighting dimmed, and the white screen beside Joe became one of the black-and-white images he'd studied upon first revisiting this case.
"The Oberfeldt store, taken from the entrance looking toward the back room. You'll note the large bloodstain on the floor, belonging to the victim, who died of his injuries six months later, and a small string of droplets heading toward the rear exit. The working theory, then as now, is that during the beating, the assailant was also wounded and left those smaller bloodstains behind on his way to the storage room, where he removed the money from under the floorboards before escaping out the back door."
"Were samples collected of both?" J. P. Tyler, the PD's forensics expert, asked from the darkness.
"Yes," Joe answered, "and they both still have viable DNA, one matching the victim, the other unmatched to date. There was also blood on… next slide."
The shop was replaced by a close-up of the knife.
"This switchblade," Joe continued, "which matched Mr. Oberfeldt's. It also had a thumbprint on the blade, the only solid clue we managed to get at the time. The print belonged to a young repeat offender-primarily a thief-named Peter Shea. We went after this kid for the robbery-assault-Mr. Oberfeldt hadn't died yet-but Shea had already left town, we think because of this." He nodded to Ron, who brought up a slide of the Blackhawk.
"According to Shea's girlfriend, Katie Clark, Pete found this under his mattress in the apartment they shared. The papers at the time were told that Oberfeldt was pistol-whipped, but not about the switchblade, so Shea apparently figured that the gun, covered with blood when he found it, was the one we were looking for. Already being a penal system graduate, he assumed we'd connect the gun to him and throw away the key. So he ran."
"Wasn't he right?" asked one of the troopers. "If the knife was his and the gun was under his bed, didn't that make him the bad guy? Did he have an alibi?"
"No," Joe conceded, "which is why we liked him, not to mention that the blood type of those droplets matched his, as they did most of us in the pre-DNA days. But you'll see the real problem in a bit. This takes a little explaining. Next, Ron."
This time the slide was of Katie Clark, looking fast asleep, just as he'd left her. Except that this was a medical examiner's photograph.
"This is the girlfriend I mentioned-Katie Clark-found dead a few days ago in her apartment in Orange. So far, she's been ruled a natural, although obviously I have my doubts. In any case, after Pete left Brattleboro, Katie gave the Blackhawk to her brother, who hid it in his Dummerston house, probably forgot all about it, and then died a few years later. In the last couple of months, a young couple bought the place and began fixing it up. During that process, a floor refinisher found the gun, stole it, and sold it, indirectly, to the guy who died in that hostage negotiation. That's how it resurfaced. It had been so well preserved over the years that the lab was able to match the blood on it to Klaus Oberfeldt's."
Joe paused to let everyone absorb what he'd told them so far, before resuming, "Now here's one of the first problems I mentioned: if Katie told the truth, and Pete did find the gun planted under his mattress, who planted it? One of you already suggested it wasn't planted at all, implying Katie was covering for her boyfriend. That's fair enough-God knows we've seen that before-but a second problem then presents itself. Next slide."
This showed a body floating in the water at night, wedged between a boat and a dock piling. "This is the late Peter Shea, who'd been living under an assumed name in Gloucester for several years. He was murdered just hours before I could talk to him, just as Katie Clark died one day after I spoke with her. Needless to say, if Shea was Oberfeldt's killer, then who killed him and why? And here's the kicker: The knife wound that did in Shea is a carbon copy of the one the ME found in Hannah Shriver."
Predictably, there were a few muted comments exchanged among the audience.
"All right," Joe went on. "Let's allow for several explanations, the first being that Shea was good for the Oberfeldt killing, that Katie lied about his finding the gun under the mattress, and that he died the death of any number of drunks who hang around the rough part of town. That would also mean that Katie did in fact die of natural causes and that Hannah Shriver's wound looking a lot like Pete's is pure coincidence."
"Right," Willy commented caustically.
"Another explanation," Joe said, "is that Shea was framed, like he claimed, and that the recent resurfacing of the gun had the effect of pounding a fist on a chess table and rearranging the pieces. The person who framed him was forced to cover tracks he didn't think he'd ever have to worry about again."
"Isn't that a bit of a reach?" asked Tyler. "The evidence still points to Shea."
"Yes and no," Joe answered. "The circumstantial case is the same, but now, with DNA analysis, we know that those blood droplets, although of the same group, aren't actually his. To my mind, they represent the one unplanned aspect of this whole thing. You could see someone stealing Shea's knife, which he did say he'd lost; you could see the same person planting the gun on Shea later. But who could predict that Oberfeldt might land a lucky punch as he was being beaten? It's the spontaneous nature of those droplets that gives them credibility."
There was a moment's silence as everyone considered the point.
"You can hit the lights, Ron. Thanks."
They all blinked in the sudden brightness as Joe continued. "Okay, for the time being, I'd like you to just tuck this away-an old anomaly needing closer scrutiny. Our primary job right now is the murder of Hannah Shriver. If nothing else, it's a spanking new case, which should help. Let's not forget, though, that she was roughly the same age as Katie and Pete; she lived here the same time they did; she died pretty close to when they both died, and precisely the same way Shea did. In addition, for what it's worth, Willy's pretty sure her house was searched before we got to it. We have no idea what may have been taken, if anything, but whoever did it was thorough and tried covering their tracks."
He rose from where he'd been sitting on the edge of a desk and began pacing before them. "My proposal is that we divide and conquer, concentrating on Hannah now and on Hannah thirty-two years ago, 'cause if I'm right about there being a connection between these three people, Hannah is officially the wild card. It's looking like Pete was framed for the murder; Katie was definitely his girlfriend, helped ditch the incriminating gun, and might've been killed because she knew of his whereabouts. But Hannah? Who knows? If we really dig into her history, both recent and past, my instinct tells me we'll find the common denominator that pulls everything together."
He motioned to Sam, who stood up and began distributing packets.
"This is what we've got so far. You'll find photos, crime scene sketches, witness interviews, an inventory of Hannah's house contents, and anything else we thought might be helpful. The top sheet outlines everyone's assignments and responsibilities. As you proceed with your separate investigations, there will be daily briefings down here at four p.m. unless or until an alternate time is announced. I would like to stress that if any of you uncovers something clearly fitting someone else's job description, please make sure that person gets the information ASAP. Sam will be the designated gathering point for everything, and she will be apprising me on a continual basis. Also, if I'm unavailable, she will run the daily briefings. Are there any questions?"