And That's How We Found Them

Katherine Pickerill

Physical Therapy Major—4th Year

“It looks like a pretty easy, open and shut case to me, Liz… I… I mean, Chief… We just came from the scene; you have a minute?”

“Oh, you think so, McLeon? Catch me up…” Chief Albers responded.

“Alright, at about noon today, we got a call for a welfare check on a 27-year-old female, Chelsea Wright. Her fellow nurse at the hospital called it in. She said it was really unlike Chelsea to miss a shift and… blah blah the usual stuff, you know? Officer Jameson went to the house, and he noticed there was a car with an open door outside, which he thought was odd, so he called for back-up. That’s when I showed up.”

“Got it, was she in the house?” asked Albers.

“Oh, she was inside… but so was someone else. Both dead.”

“Stop with the theatrics… just tell me what is going on. Who are these people? Give me the evidence. No wonder I always have so much to do when I get in…”

“Well, as soon as we entered the house, Chelsea was laying right inside the door, well actually slumped against it, with a gunshot straight through her chest. A few feet away was another woman who we didn’t know, also shot dead, but through the head and she had a gun in her hand. We found some identification in the car, Melinda Spivey. She was 34-years-old. We also found a suicide note in her car that said she had come to terms with what was about to happen and she hoped God could forgive her. Seems like a murder-suicide to me, Chief.”

“Okay McLeon, let me get all of this straight. How were the two women connected? Why would Melinda have been motivated to kill Chelsea? Or herself for that matter?” asked Albers.

“Well, that’s what we are trying to piece together. Jameson is out contacting Melinda’s husband, Oliver, now. He is that lawyer that has the office on the west side of the square, you know… I think that might be him coming in now.” McLeon pointed out the rectangular window in Chief Albers’ office that faced the parking lot.

—————

“Oliver Spivey?” Chief Albers inquired as soon as the trim man in a grey suit, white dress shirt and light blue tie walked into the police station.

“That’s me,” the red-faced man responded timidly.

“I’m so sorry about your wife, follow me back here. We just need to talk to you for a few minutes” Albers responded. “Take a seat right here. Are you doing alright?”

“As good as I can be after getting this news… I just can’t believe she’s gone,” Oliver shook his head into his hands.

“Do you know why Melinda would want to take her own life?” Albers started.

“No, no, nothing, I mean we just moved into a new house and we were seeing a marriage counselor, but our marriage seemed on the up and up. We have been spending even more time together lately.”

“Have any of the other officers told you that there was another victim at the scene?”

“No, no one has told me anything. What do you mean?”

“There was another woman killed at the scene. Her name was Chelsea Wright, do you know anything about her?”

“WHAT? Oh my God… Yeah, I know her, how did this happen? What is going on?!”

“Okay, okay, Oliver just take a minute to compose yourself. I’m sorry to break all of this news to you so quickly… I’ll let you have a minute,” Chief Albers left Oliver in her office to find Officer McLeon.

“McLeon, come over here for a minute. How did Oliver react when you guys told him that Melinda was dead?”

“He seemed pretty distraught when we first told him, he still looks pretty shook up…”

“Why didn’t he call Melinda in as a missing person?” Albers suggested.

“Let’s go find out...” McLeon and Albers walked back into the office and Oliver had started to calm down but still looked shocked.

Albers started, “So, Oliver, have you thought of any more information as far as what’s happened here?”

“I mean, I want to cooperate with you guys so I will tell you that I’ve had relations with both women. I had been cheating on Melinda with Chelsea for about a month and right before I was about to end it with Chelsea, to get back on track with Melinda, Melinda saw some messages from Chelsea on my phone. It was so stupid of me to ever cheat on Melinda, but I don’t know what happened last night. I mean, obviously Melinda was upset about the whole thing, but she told me that she had had similar thoughts of cheating through this rough patch and I honestly thought she was on her way to forgiving me for the whole thing…”

“Did you think it was odd that Melinda didn’t come home last night?”

“I mean yeah I thought it was strange, but I figured she had just gone to her sister’s or something to calm down, she only lives an hour away. I was at the office until eleven working on a case. I tried to call her last night and again this morning. I figured she didn’t pick up because she was upset with me or something. Chelsea didn’t take it too well when I told her that we had to break everything off… I guess she thought I would leave Melinda but…” Oliver tearfully responded choking down sobs, “I would never have left Melinda. I don’t even understand why the two of them were together at all. Can you guys tell me anything else? You think Melinda killed herself?”

“Well that’s the thing, Oliver, we found a gun in your wife’s hand and it sounds to me like she might have had a motive to kill Chelsea,” McLeon quickly retorted.

“I, I just can’t believe my wife would do this, I’m sorry, I’m just so overwhelmed, can I please go home? I need to call her parents,” Oliver pleaded.

Albers responded with, “You’re free to go at any time Oliver, we’re not holding you here. Just one more thing, though, will you want an autopsy for Melinda?”

“No, no, she’s gone through enough already,” Oliver quickly responded.

—————

“McLeon, make sure you file the paperwork to get an autopsy done on Melinda’s body,” Albers’ said as soon as the door shut behind Oliver.

“Why? He just said he didn’t want one. You can’t actually think there is more to this story, do you? Come on… I told you at the very beginning that this is an easy case. Don’t make this hard on yourself and don’t try to prove yourself to us just because you’re the new Chief.”

“An autopsy never hurt anyone, just get it done.”

“Fine but this is just a waste of resources. Melinda was obviously upset about her husband cheating on her, so she went over to Chelsea’s house, got herself inside, waited for Chelsea to get home, pulled out the gun, killed Chelsea and then shot herself.”

“Mhhm got it, go file for an autopsy. Make sure Chelsea is autopsied, too.” Albers added, “Did you guys say that you found Melinda’s ID in her car? Did she have a FOID card or anything in there with it?”

“No, Chief, and we already looked her up in the system, she doesn’t have a FOID card on file so she never could have bought a gun. I’m sure it was Oliver’s,” McLeon said as he left her office.

—————

The next morning, Albers asked, “did you hear the results from the autopsy?” before McLeon even had a chance to get a cup of coffee.

“No, but you have that look on your face that says, ‘I was right,’ so what’s up?”

“The medical examiner called me this morning and said that we might want to start up an investigation into a double homicide. He couldn’t say definitively but it looks like Melinda may have been dead before Chelsea, based on his investigation. He also told me that there was no gunshot residue on Melinda’s hands. I think that disproves the whole murder-suicide explanation pretty easily, huh?”

“I guess so Chief, I guess so” McLeon cracked half a smile, “Let’s get to work.”

“Alright, first I need you to call Oliver Spivey and get a search warrant for his house and while you’re at it, get one for his phone, too.” McLeon nodded but Chief Albers was already diving into her research on Oliver on her computer.

—————

“Welcome back, Oliver, we have a few questions for you this time. As you know, I have a couple of my guys looking through some stuff at your house, so before we start, is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Albers prompted.

“No, I told you everything I knew last time. I mean I told you how Chelsea was still bothering me, didn’t I? I think that’s why Melinda went over there that night, she must have wanted to get rid of Chelsea for continuing to bother us. Melinda must have thought it was too much, so she killed herself, too?”

“Interesting idea Oliver, you are aware that we got an autopsy, right? So, is there anything else you want to tell us?”

Oliver, furrowing his forehead together, “No, Chief, I just miss my wife, I wish I could help you more, but I just want to start healing from all of this, please!”

“We have reason to believe this was not a murder-suicide, but rather a double homicide.” Albers laid it bare as Oliver’s eyes widened.

“You, you don’t think I did this, do you? I told you I was at the office the whole night!”

“Mhhm, but why wouldn’t Melinda have just blocked Chelsea’s number off of your phone? I mean you were the first to say she seemed well and that your marriage was improving.”

“I, I don’t know! I wasn’t there, God this must look so bad… Don’t you guys have any leads? If she was murdered, I want to know who did it!”

“Well, if you really were at the office all night, then why don’t you tell us who else would have had it out for both of these women? Actually, we will leave you in here for a few minutes with a pen and paper and I would like you to write down any ideas,” Albers set down a legal pad and pen and ushered McLeon out of the room.

“We have to be missing something, Albers,” McLeon whispered right outside the door.

“I’m not done yet,” Albers clipped right back. “As soon as the medical examiner shut down the murder-suicide idea, I started tracing the serial number on the gun that was found at the scene. Looks like it didn’t belong to Oliver, anyway. It was purchased by Duncan Moore in Bessemer, that’s only about an hour away.”

“Oh, we see him sometimes. He’s been in on some charges for theft, but he’d never hurt anyone. He’s lived around here his whole life, you’d know him if you saw him. I’ll get him down here,” McLeon said passively as Albers went back in with Oliver.

“Look Oliver, I know I’m new around here, but I vow to get to the bottom of this case. I’d like you to stay here for a little while longer, okay?” Albers asserted as Oliver nodded.

—————

“Would someone tell me what is going on?” Duncan Moore started as soon as he was escorted into Chief Albers’ office.

“Take a seat Mr. Moore” Albers said without looking up from her computer. Then, meeting his eyes she asked, “Do you know Chelsea Wright?”

“No,” the man immediately responded.

“Do you remember where you were last Thursday night?”

“Uh yeah, I was at home, I had to get up early the next day because my boss asked me to open the auto shop early, we had a lot of oil changes. I went to bed ‘round 10 that night…”

“Alright Mr. Moore sounds good. What about Melinda Spivey, do you know anything about her? Ever met her?”

“Never heard the name.”

“Well we are looking into the death of both women,” Albers said as she raised her eyebrows at Moore.

“Well I don’t know anything about it!” Moore defended.

“We asked you to come down here because we found your gun at the scene of a double homicide.” Albers responded. When confronted with this evidence, Moore immediately tensed up. Sensing this, Albers told him “We are just looking for an explanation as to how this could have happened, Mr. Moore.”

Breaking into tears and with a trembling voice, Moore confessed, “I lied, I wasn’t in bed early that night.” When Albers pressed just a bit more, Moore blurted out, “I killed both women. But it wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”

McLeon, astounded that Albers moved so quickly through all of this evidence, started to ask Moore to elaborate. But Albers immediately shot him a look that told him to back off just as Moore gave even more information, “I didn’t want to do it but he said he would help me out, oh God, oh God… I knew this would happen!”

“Would you rather write down what happened that night?” Albers proposed to Moore; a suggestion to which he agreed.

Albers headed back to the room where Oliver was and she told him “We have Duncan Moore in my office and he seems to know all about what happened, are you sure you don’t want to tell us anything else?” Oliver’s face fell as Chief Albers placed him in handcuffs and told McLeon to do the same to Moore.

—————

After both men were booked into jail, Albers looked to McLeon who admitted, “I owe you an apology, you know what you’re doing. Now, can you tell me what is going on?”

“Remember when you told me that Moore had some charges? I started to wonder if he was seeking help from Oliver as a lawyer. Without the means to pay him, I believe Oliver decided to strike up a deal with Moore. Instead of accepting money as payment for defending him in court, Oliver asked a desperate Moore to get rid of that mistake he had made: Chelsea. I mean Oliver never even needed to ask us how the women died, because he already knew.”

“But what about Melinda…”

“Wrong place at the wrong time. She must have gone to ask Chelsea to leave the couple alone. When Chelsea got home that night, the two women walked into the house together, where Moore was waiting. I suppose Melinda walked in first and as Chelsea closed the door behind them both, Moore shot Melinda before realizing there were two women. Then he must have shot Chelsea knowing that was his real mission. Thinking quickly, he frames it as a murder-suicide by placing the gun in Melinda’s hand and scribbling a suicide note, throwing it in the car and leaving the door open as he fled the scene.”

“And that’s how we found them…” McLeon shook his head.