Chapter 50
FIFTY
Eric entered the interrogation room armed with a folder and what he planned to use against Kramer. The arrest warrants for Todd Levine and Dean Finley were in the works. But while he waited, he might as well talk with Kramer since his lawyer had arrived.
He sat across from Kramer and his attorney in an interrogation room at MPD headquarters.
“Rolland Wood,” the lawyer said.
“Detective Eric Birch.”
“Please, let’s get on with this. I’d like to go to the hospital to be with Edward Hanson. Not to mention no one has even told me why I’m here.” Kramer’s face was red and knotted with aggravation.
For now, Eric kept the folder closed. He relaxed his shoulders, trying to give the impression this was to be a casual conversation.
As if Kramer would be stupid enough to buy that after spending some time in holding.
But the mixed signals would mess with his mind.
“You have quite the concern for Timothy’s son. Are you close?”
“You could say that. I’ve watched over him all his life.”
“I thought that your primary objective was keeping Timothy safe. I have heard that you two were close.”
“Why do you make my loyalty come off sounding as if it’s a bad thing?”
His back is up… “People like Timothy attract a lot of enemies. Protecting him would have been a full-time job.” Eric carried on in his own direction, not touching on Kramer’s question.
“It was. But he’s dead, so…”
“Detective, if you could get to the point…” Wood huffed as if the minutes weren’t being rounded up to the hour.
“To the point, your client is suspected of murdering Susan Crawford.” Eric didn’t normally play interrogations quite so bluntly but there was a time and place.
To Kramer’s credit, he held eye contact while remaining silent.
“I assume you have something to back up this allegation,” Wood said dryly.
Eric put his gaze on Kramer. “Does the name Susan Crawford sound familiar to you?”
Kramer’s gaze diverted, danced around the room.
Eric took that reaction as a yes. Also, Officer Moore’s opinion about Kramer wasn’t far from mind. Kramer is a liar. She was positive Kramer recognized the name Ryan Crawford despite acting like it was foreign to him. “Maybe some context will help. She died in a fatal crash thirty-three years ago.”
“Detective, are you being serious right now?” the lawyer inserted.
Eric silenced the lawyer with a raised hand and withdrew photos of the accident from his folder. He spread them out on the table. Other than briefly glancing at them, Kramer didn’t show any reaction.
“The accident file stated it was a single-vehicle crash due to unfavorable road conditions, but as you can see from these photos, another vehicle was involved,” Eric began.
“Eyewitnesses say they saw someone run Ms. Crawford off the road. This person took off immediately after Crawford hit the pole, but the driver didn’t get away without being seen.
He was described as being of large build with brown hair. ”
Wood smiled tightly. “Who could have been anyone.”
Eric pushed forward. “Eyewitnesses also say the vehicle was a white cargo van.”
Kramer met his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know anything about this. It has nothing to do with me.”
The eye contact and his words tried to convince Eric he was being truthful.
But from Eric’s experience whenever people said honestly or something stupid like you’ve got to trust me, the next words out of their mouth were going to be a lie.
Eric produced a copy of the rental agreement, the signature highlighted.
“Maybe you could explain this for me then?” He pointed at the signature line.
Kramer avoided his gaze. Was it going through his head that the FBI agent had him sign some bogus form for comparison? After a few beats of silence, the lawyer spoke.
“So Mr. Kramer rented a van. Big deal. Do you have any proof that van was used to push Crawford off the road?” Wood clasped his hands on the table and tilted his head.
Eric opened the folder and pulled out a copy of the NDA. He pushed it across for Kramer to read.
“Where did you get that?” Kramer asked as Wood grabbed the printout for a look.
“From Timothy Hanson’s home office, but that part doesn’t matter.
What does is that we think Mr. Hanson manipulated you and used this to make you do whatever he wanted.
” He pointed at the NDA in the lawyer’s hands.
“Did Timothy Hanson ever tell you how he was connected to Susan Crawford? How he’d raped her and got her pregnant while she was his secretary? ”
“No, Timothy was a decent family man. Respectable. Yesterday was all about some pathetic man looking for a payout.”
The first part rolled off his tongue like a rite of passage.
The latter bit was an attempt to downplay the allegations.
“No, he wasn’t, and I think you know that.
As for that pathetic man, money never came up.
He wanted the truth to come out and for his mother to get the justice she deserves.
That was why he asked that an investigation be opened into her death. Hence, what has led us here.”
“Where exactly is that?” Wood tossed the NDA back onto the table.
Eric ignored the man’s question and continued speaking to Kramer.
“You’ve got a clean record. You ask me, Timothy used his power over you to make you do this.
You’re not a killer on your own.” Eric’s approach was simple.
Paint Kramer as the victim and hope he’d feel comfortable enough to talk.
While this tactic provided the defense with a strategy, any jury could look past this and find Kramer guilty and move to convict.
He might receive a lesser sentence, but at least someone would pay for Susan Crawford’s murder.
Wood tapped Kramer’s arm, and Kramer leaned in toward his lawyer. After he whispered into Kramer’s ear, he sat back and crossed his arms. “I plead the Fifth.”
When someone stood behind that US constitutional right, the truth wasn’t far behind. If Eric was going to ferret it out, it was time for a fresh strategy. Part two, prod his humanity. “You have a daughter, Ellie. She’s thirty-five.”
“Leave her out of this,” Kramer hissed.
Eric pulled a report from his folder. “She sort of followed in your footsteps. But instead of choosing a career in security, she’s a police officer in Maryland. You must be proud of her.”
“What does she have to do with anything?”
Eric put an enlarged photograph of Ellie, taken from her driver’s license, on the table.
He turned it to face Kramer. Letting his daughter look up on him during this conversation would hopefully apply pressure to Kramer’s conscience.
“How do you think she’d feel if she learned what you did all those years ago?
Would she be proud of you? Or would she be heartbroken? ”
Kramer pushed the photo of his daughter back toward Eric. “Timothy never had me cross the line.”
Yet you can’t look your daughter in the face while you say that… Eric shoved the photo back to where it had been, and Kramer flipped it over. Eric pressed on. “Maybe she’d understand if you explained how you felt you had no choice, that Timothy—”
“I didn’t,” Kramer spat. “He held Ellie over my head just like you’re doing now, and he made me sign that ridiculous NDA.”
“Are you saying that you ran Susan and her son off the road?”
Kramer remained silent.
“My client was a victim of Timothy Hanson. You said so yourself.” Wood peacocked his posture, chin jutted out.
He’d clearly grasped hold of the defense strategy Eric had provided. To Kramer, Eric said, “Why did he wait six years to go after Susan Crawford?” It was a long shot Kramer would know and be willing to share the answer, but Eric had to try. Curious minds and all…
Kramer shook his head. “Mr. Hanson wasn’t in the habit of confiding in me, but he said something about teaching the world a lesson.”
“The world…?” Eric would get around to what the lesson was in a minute.
“More specifically any of the women he assaulted.”
Throwing Kramer’s earlier words in his face would accomplish nothing. But so much for Timothy being a good, decent family man. “That still doesn’t explain the lesson or why he waited so long to target Susan.”
Kramer licked his lips. “Ms. Crawford came around looking for money. She had an NDA too, but she was going to challenge it.”
So Timothy’s lesson was more a message that he wasn’t going to let his victims blackmail him.
Susan Crawford’s crash covered, Eric decided to move forward in another direction.
“Roger Simms was the police photographer from that day. He died within the week, and his report and the pictures he took went missing from the official record. Maybe he wasn’t willing to play along and Timothy ordered you to take care of him…
?” The recording had suggested Simms was murdered by Timothy’s man, but Eric softened the accusation.
Shift the weight of this onto Timothy. Continue to make Kramer feel it was safe to talk.
“So what? You think my client killed him too? What proof is there of that?” the lawyer protested.
Eric sat back in his chair, relaxing his shoulders and arms. “There were other people involved in the cover-up. Two police officers. One of them is talking.” Not a lie, possibly misleading. Whatever would make Kramer think they were angling for a deal by turning on him.
“They don’t know who I am.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You don’t think trained cops would have dug into the people handing them a payoff?” A poker bluff dispensed with nonchalance.
Kramer’s gaze landed on the back of his daughter’s photograph that was still on the table.
This gave Eric something to work with. Kramer was still in possession of a conscience.
He turned the photo back upright. “She’s a beautiful woman, who is making a real difference with her life.
Tragically, Susan Crawford didn’t get the same chance.
Her life was cut short. Her son lost his mother, and her sister had to bury her.
So many lives were destroyed that day. And then there’s Roger Simms’s family and friends who were all left searching for meaning in his death. ”
Kramer picked up Ellie’s photograph.
“She might understand if you told her everything. Why you did it, felt you didn’t have a choice,” Eric said softly, working an angle. “She’d probably even respect you more for taking accountability for your actions.”
Kramer let the photo fall back to the table, and Eric returned it to the folder.
“How this plays out is up to you, Mr. Kramer. I will tell you that whoever talks first gets the deal. That’s just the way it works.” He articulated it as if he were on Kramer’s side, even tossed in a solemn smile.
“Fine, yes, I did everything you just mentioned. I ran Crawford off the road, and I pushed that photographer over a ravine.” Kramer slumped forward and buried his face in his hands.
“I want the record to show that my client came forward.” Wood was quick to jump in to salvage some of Kramer’s future.
“We’ll make it work.” Eric would say whatever necessary to get Kramer behind bars.
He stood and left the room. In the hallway, Eric updated the uniformed officer on standby to take Kramer to a holding cell and that formal charges were coming.
Now to resume the nightmare of his current existence. The arrest warrants should be ready.