chair.
“You just sit here, Josie,” I said. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter
SEVENTEEN
Two uniformed CPD officers arrived thirteen minutes after my 911 call.
One of them, a six-two, black-haired, blue-jawed Officer Boyle, herded us into the disrupted living room, while his partner, a shorter, rounder, browner Officer Gilstrap, went downstairs to corroborate our statement about a dead man in the basement.
It was nearly forty minutes, another four beat cops, and a Cook County medical examiner’s tech team later when, to my surprise, Detectives Hank Bollinger and Ike Ruello arrived. Since it was doubtful they were the CPD’s only homicide dicks, I assumed someone at dispatch had been particularly diligent in connecting Kelsto’s demise to their investigation of the Pat Patton murder. I didn’t know at the time that there was an obvious connection.
Bollinger gave Carrie a curious look and said, “You usually wear a wig, Ms. Sands?”
“Just when I feel like blending in,” she said.
“Might take a little more than that,” Ruello said.
Josie began to tell Bollinger about “poor Mr. Kelsto,” but he interrupted her. “We’re anxious to get your statement, ma’am, all of your statements, but you’ll have to give us a few minutes to look around first.
“Please confine your activity to this room until the technicians from the medical examiner’s office get their work done. And I’d appreciate it if you hold all your observations, thoughts, and questions until I get back.”
He walked to Officer Boyle, who was standing at the entrance to the room, and whispered something in his ear. Then, slipping on blue shoe covers and white latex gloves, he and Ruello went down to the basement to eyeball the corpse.
When they returned, Bollinger asked, “All three of you saw the victim downstairs?”
Carrie and I nodded. Josie made a little moan.
Bollinger asked her if she needed anything. She shook her head from side to side.
He took a breath, then said to Josie, “The technicians are through in the dining room. Officer Boyle’s gonna find you a comfortable chair in there and take down your statement. Okay?”
That accomplished, he sent Carrie away with Ruello and then sat down on one of the sliced chairs, facing me. He removed his minirecorder from his coat pocket and clicked it on. He spoke directly into it, mentioning the date, the time, the address, and his own name. He referenced a case number and followed that with a general description of the semi-destroyed house and the brutalized and tortured corpse of one of its occupants in the basement.
“At the scene are housekeeper Josepha Davis, actress Carrie Sands, and television, ah, performer Billy Blessing, whose statement is as follows:
“Mr. Blessing, would you begin by giving me your full name, your address, and phone number?”
“Local address or home?”
“Both. Also, length of time you’ve been here in Chicago.”
“I already …,” I began, and stopped when I saw him frown.
I repeated the information I’d given him yesterday morning.
That done, he asked, “Can you tell me when you arrived at this address today and why?”
It was clear he wanted everything nailed down tight. I provided the scenario that Carrie and I had concocted before returning to the house. Since it was possible for the police to locate the cabdriver who’d dropped me off an hour before I’d phoned in the murder, I told him that Carrie and I had arrived at pretty much the same time a few hours ago and discovered that nobody was home.
“We figured Larry had gotten delayed, and so we decided to take a walk around and see a little of the neighborhood. We came back. He still wasn’t here. We drove around a little in her car—it’s the violet BMW parked down the street. We came back. This time, the housekeeper answered the bell.”
From there, it was simply a matter of describing exactly what had happened, minus our rubbing away our fingerprints.
Of course,
“You just sit here, Josie,” I said. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter
SEVENTEEN
Two uniformed CPD officers arrived thirteen minutes after my 911 call.
One of them, a six-two, black-haired, blue-jawed Officer Boyle, herded us into the disrupted living room, while his partner, a shorter, rounder, browner Officer Gilstrap, went downstairs to corroborate our statement about a dead man in the basement.
It was nearly forty minutes, another four beat cops, and a Cook County medical examiner’s tech team later when, to my surprise, Detectives Hank Bollinger and Ike Ruello arrived. Since it was doubtful they were the CPD’s only homicide dicks, I assumed someone at dispatch had been particularly diligent in connecting Kelsto’s demise to their investigation of the Pat Patton murder. I didn’t know at the time that there was an obvious connection.
Bollinger gave Carrie a curious look and said, “You usually wear a wig, Ms. Sands?”
“Just when I feel like blending in,” she said.
“Might take a little more than that,” Ruello said.
Josie began to tell Bollinger about “poor Mr. Kelsto,” but he interrupted her. “We’re anxious to get your statement, ma’am, all of your statements, but you’ll have to give us a few minutes to look around first.
“Please confine your activity to this room until the technicians from the medical examiner’s office get their work done. And I’d appreciate it if you hold all your observations, thoughts, and questions until I get back.”
He walked to Officer Boyle, who was standing at the entrance to the room, and whispered something in his ear. Then, slipping on blue shoe covers and white latex gloves, he and Ruello went down to the basement to eyeball the corpse.
When they returned, Bollinger asked, “All three of you saw the victim downstairs?”
Carrie and I nodded. Josie made a little moan.
Bollinger asked her if she needed anything. She shook her head from side to side.
He took a breath, then said to Josie, “The technicians are through in the dining room. Officer Boyle’s gonna find you a comfortable chair in there and take down your statement. Okay?”
That accomplished, he sent Carrie away with Ruello and then sat down on one of the sliced chairs, facing me. He removed his minirecorder from his coat pocket and clicked it on. He spoke directly into it, mentioning the date, the time, the address, and his own name. He referenced a case number and followed that with a general description of the semi-destroyed house and the brutalized and tortured corpse of one of its occupants in the basement.
“At the scene are housekeeper Josepha Davis, actress Carrie Sands, and television, ah, performer Billy Blessing, whose statement is as follows:
“Mr. Blessing, would you begin by giving me your full name, your address, and phone number?”
“Local address or home?”
“Both. Also, length of time you’ve been here in Chicago.”
“I already …,” I began, and stopped when I saw him frown.
I repeated the information I’d given him yesterday morning.
That done, he asked, “Can you tell me when you arrived at this address today and why?”
It was clear he wanted everything nailed down tight. I provided the scenario that Carrie and I had concocted before returning to the house. Since it was possible for the police to locate the cabdriver who’d dropped me off an hour before I’d phoned in the murder, I told him that Carrie and I had arrived at pretty much the same time a few hours ago and discovered that nobody was home.
“We figured Larry had gotten delayed, and so we decided to take a walk around and see a little of the neighborhood. We came back. He still wasn’t here. We drove around a little in her car—it’s the violet BMW parked down the street. We came back. This time, the housekeeper answered the bell.”
From there, it was simply a matter of describing exactly what had happened, minus our rubbing away our fingerprints.
Of course,
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