30
Mike Wilson decided that his next move would be to go to Nellie’s and verify the time that Alan and his friends had been there and when they left. He phoned the restaurant and was told by the manager that the same waitstaff that had been on duty Saturday would be there this evening.
It turned out to be easy to find the waitress he wanted to speak to. Glady Moore had been telling everyone that she had served Alan Crowley the night that poor girl was murdered. Wilson got to the restaurant at seven, spoke to Glady briefly and was told she could take time to talk to him in about fifteen minutes.
The tempting smell of pizza reminded him that he was hungry. He ordered a Margherita pizza and a glass of beer.
As she had promised, Glady came over to his table and sat opposite him. “Kerry used to come in here with her friends,” she said. “She was such a beautiful girl. To think that she was murdered the very night that I was serving pizza to those boys.”
“Do you remember what time they got to the restaurant?”
“Three of them, not the boyfriend Alan Crowley, came in around ten o’clock. The Yankees were playing, so they took a table near the bar so they could watch the game.”
“When did Alan join them?” Mike asked.
“It was about ten-thirty. You should have seen the look on his face.”
“What do you mean by that?” Mike asked.
“He looked so angry. You’d think he wanted to kill somebody. He was so rude to me. He didn’t ask for anything. Just pointed to the pizza the other boys were eating, indicating that’s what he wanted. Just between you and me, I think he avoided talking because he had been drinking. When I brought his order, he was texting on his cell phone.”
“Okay,” Mike said. “He arrived at ten-thirty. Let’s say you took his order at ten-thirty-five. How long does it take to make the pizza?”
“About ten minutes.”
“So you brought him his order at ten-forty-five. What happened next?”
“When he finished it, he just walked out without paying.”
“If you can remember, what time was that?”
“Let’s see. He talked to the boys for a while. I noticed he was on his phone, texting some more.”
“What time do you think it was when he left?”
“I know it was a little after eleven, not later than eleven-fifteen.”
“Let’s focus on his three friends. Do you remember what time they left?”
“They stayed until the end of the game.”
Mike had checked. The game had ended at 11:46.
“Thank you, Glady. You’ve been very helpful. I may ask you at a later date to come down to my office and give an official statement.”
A delighted smile came over Glady’s face. “I’d love to. I can make it anytime you want.”
As Mike was getting up to leave, he asked, “Did you ever get paid for Alan’s pizza?”
“One of his friends took care of it.”
• • •
Mike went to the Prosecutor’s Office, where Assistant Prosecutor Artie Schulman was waiting for him. Artie was the Chief of the Homicide Unit. “Artie, can we talk in my office?” he asked. “It will be easier.”
On his wall Mike had a series of whiteboards. The first showed in alphabetical order the names of the kids who had been at Kerry’s party. Most of the names were written in black. The seven names written in red were under eighteen years old.
To the left of each name was the date Mike or a member of his team had questioned the student or a big “R.” R, Mike explained, meant they refused to be interviewed, or if they were minors, their parents had refused the interview. Eight names were preceded by an “R.” To the right of each name was a date in August or September. It was the date of the student’s departure for his or her respective college.
On the second whiteboard there were eight names. These were students who claimed they had witnessed the argument that took place between Alan and Kerry at the party. A “T” to the right of their names indicated the girls who had sent a text message to Kerry after the party.
The third whiteboard listed the names of Alan Crowley’s three supposed alibi witnesses.
Artie looked at the whiteboards.
“Two of the students who witnessed the arguments are headed for schools in the Midwest and another is going to California,” Mike said. “I’m assuming that for budget reasons, Matt Koenig will want me to complete these interviews in New Jersey versus flying across the country,” he added, referring to the County Prosecutor.
“You’ve got that right,” Artie agreed.
Mike updated him on the progress of his investigation. “We got the court order to go through Alan Crowley’s cell phone records. He is lying about how long he stayed at the restaurant. His phone pinged a tower right by the victim’s home on the other side of Saddle River at 11:25 P.M. It’s pretty clear he went back to the victim’s home after he left Nellie’s.”
“What about Crowley’s friends who gave him an alibi?”
“It looks like he asked them to lie for him, and they did. I’m going to contact the three of them and have them come down here to give a formal statement. After I read them the riot act about what could happen when you lie to an investigator, I’m sure their memories will improve.”
“We’ve confirmed the golf club was the murder weapon,” Schulman said. “Any progress on identifying the fingerprints on it?”
“Yes, but that’s going to be a problem,” Mike told him.
“Why?”
Mike picked up a report on his desk and flipped the page. “According to the lab, there are five separate, identifiable prints on the putter. All of these are on the steel shaft. The numerous prints on the rubber grip are so smudged that they’re unusable.”
“Anything on the putter head?”
“No.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Alan Crowley’s thumbprint is on the putter. The victim’s parents, the Dowlings, gave us their prints. Each has one fingerprint on the putter. That leaves two we still have to match.”
“Where do we go from there?”
“That is the problem. In my interviews of the party guests, a number of them who spent time outside in the backyard either admitted to using the practice green or gave me the names of boys who were taking turns putting.”
“So we have a lot of kids who actually handled the murder weapon?”
“Correct. Of the eight males who I can identify as having handled the putter, not a single one has a criminal record.”
“And therefore we don’t have their prints on file?”
“Even though most of the students who were at the party consented to be interviewed, I’m pretty sure we’ll get a lot of resistance if we ask them to give fingerprints.”
Artie nodded. “We can’t ask a judge to compel them to give us their prints because they aren’t suspects.”
“That’s right.”
“Have you been able to pin down the time of death?” Artie asked.
“The medical examiner’s report didn’t give us much help there. The pool water was eighty-five degrees. In water that warm, body tissue degrades quickly. The latest we know she was alive was eleven-ten P.M. on Saturday, when she sent her last text. The family found her in the water at eleven-fifteen A.M. on Sunday. So the maximum amount of time she was in the water is about twelve hours.”
“So she could have been killed at four in the morning?”
“Yes, but that’s highly unlikely. Alan Crowley in his statement said she was going to clean up outside and then go to bed. Her text to him says the same thing. I was at the property. In another ten minutes she could have finished cleaning the backyard.”
“So there’s no evidence to suggest that she might have gone to bed and then Crowley forced her to come back outside?”
“No, there isn’t. But there is evidence that she never went to bed that night. We checked her room. Her bed was made.”
“That doesn’t tell us much. For all we know, she went to sleep on the couch.”
“Agreed. But the autopsy showed that at the time of her death she still had her contact lenses in.”
“People forget to take them out, particularly if they’ve been drinking.”
“I spoke to the victim’s sister. According to her, Kerry never would have forgotten. One time she left them in overnight and got a serious eye infection. She was religious about taking them out before going to sleep.”
“So what time do you think the murder took place?”
“Between eleven-ten, when she sent her last text, and about ten minutes later, when she would have finished cleaning the backyard.”
“Precisely the time Crowley came back to the house.”
“Artie, I believe that subject to interviewing Crowley’s friends who were at Nellie’s and confirming that they lied, we have more than enough to arrest Alan Crowley. He was at the party. He was jealous. He sent angry text messages to her. Phone records show that he went back to the home to see her after the party and lied about it. He asked his friends to lie. His fingerprints are on the murder weapon. He denied having touched it the night of the party.”
“Where are we on this Good Samaritan flat tire changer?”
“Kerry’s friend said Kerry told her that after she picked up the beer, he was aggressive and tried to kiss her. But a couple of her friends say she was a flirt. Maybe she was exaggerating. She was a very pretty young woman. As of today, we’ve made almost no progress in trying to find him.”
“I wish we could have nailed that down, but everything really seems to point to Crowley.”
“And we can’t talk to Crowley any further because Lester Parker won’t allow us.”
“All right. Get back to me after you question his three friends. How soon can you talk to them?”
Wilson checked his whiteboard. “One of them is taking a term off. Two of them are in college locally and have agreed to come back. They’re coming in to talk to me this afternoon.”