Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder by Fred Rosen

went into the bathroom to relieve himself. Through the closed door, Carol told him that something in the closet was missing, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
    Nancy was suddenly by her side.
    “Come talk to me,” said the older woman.
    The two friends went down to the living room and sat on the sofa, where Nancy peppered her with questions about the trip. Where did they go? What did they see? They blathered on for a while and then when Tim came out of the bathroom, he and Carol went out to the garage to get the gold Caddy. Carol went to put something in the trunk—she couldn’t remember what—and that’s when she saw it.
    “It’s the kid’s piggy bank!”
    Now, Carol knew for sure that Nancy was the burglar and not someone else, because she didn’t tell her that the piggy bank was stolen and yet she found it in the very car Nancy had been using to drive to work while they were gone. Tim and Carol theorized that Nancy had stolen the goods, pawned them for drugs, and then made it look like someone else had broken into the house.
    “Leave the bank there for now,” Tim ordered.
    Carol went out back and looked at the kitchen door, the one Nancy said the burglar broke to get in. There was one big hole, boarded up. Nobody but a midget could have climbed through that. And anybody who did climb through would have gotten cut.
    Nancy never mentioned anything about blood on the kitchen floor.
    “Why don’t we see if we can find the stuff that was stolen,” Tim suggested.
    They took the Caddy and traveled around town to three different pawnshops, trying to find the jewelry that had been stolen. Carol knew that if the stuff had been pawned, there would be a name on the pawn ticket.
    No dice. The pawnshops were a dead end.
    They got back home at about 2:45 P.M It was still the same day, November 12. They agreed to let Nancy continue using the car to go to work. Then, when she got home, they would check the trunk. If she got rid of the piggy bank, they would know for sure.
    “What do you want to do now?” Carol asked
    “I’m going into Detroit to get some drugs,” Tim replied.
    When the kids got back an hour later, they were surprised and delighted to see their mother home. Nancy, meanwhile, changed into her work uniform, and Carol volunteered to drive her to work.
    In the interview room, Messina leaned back in his chair.
    That didn’t make sense, Messina thought. That just didn’t make sense. As Carol continued to talk, he tried to figure it out.
    They were going to let Nancy take the car to see if she got rid of the piggy bank. If she did, that would prove her guilt. Instead, Carol had inexplicably deviated from their plan?
    Why? Unless, there never was a plan and she was making that part of her statement up.
    “Anyway, when I got home after dropping Nancy off at work, I opened the trunk and took the piggy bank inside,” Carol continued.
    By 6:30 P.M. , Tim still wasn’t back. Everyone was hungry, so they left Tim a note saying they were going down to the Ram’s Horn for dinner. They had a nice dinner and returned by 7:30 P.M. Tim still wasn’t back.
    The bus ride, and the tension of the break-in, had made Carol very tired; she told the kids to be quiet for a half hour and she took a nap. While she lay on her bed upstairs, she could hear the kids watching TV downstairs in the living room.
    She didn’t realize that a half hour had turned into two hours until Tim woke her at 9:30 P.M. She got up quickly and put the kids to bed. By ten o’clock, they were tucked in. Carol went into her bedroom where Tim was seated on the bed.
    From the front of his belt, he pulled a revolver that he liked to carry. He said that when he was in Detroit, he had to prove himself.
    “Reload it,” Tim ordered.
    Apparently, he had shot someone. Carol didn’t ask any questions; she knew better.
    From a shelf in the closet, Carol took down a box of shells. She pressed the release on the side of the automatic and the clip popped