Chapter 2 - Forget Forensics

“Do we have all the devices?”

The two former detectives turned computer forensics experts walked into the Cuyahoga County “clean” room adding a laptop and an iPhone to the caverns of other devices already awaiting analysis.

“Yes,” Chet Samuels offered with a sigh.  He pulled up his belt to try and wrangle his burgeoning mid section.  Chet was a longtime detective in his early 50s who transitioned to handling computer evidence in the years when a computer or two trickled in a week.  That historical trend was on fire now in 2022.  The number and diversity of devices arriving for analysis was now a tidal wave of virtually anything that plugged into the wall.

“We won’t be needing to analyze this stuff though.  Just put it in the cabinet,”  Chet’s partner, Gia, blithely suggested.  Her suggestion was not posturing.  It was from experience.  Their vic was a middle aged woman, living in a relatively crime free suburb, home alone, not involved in any criminal activity, shot from a considerable distance by one round, likely a sniper rifle.  She was shot while sitting in her backyard smoking.  Not even in the dark, but in the fading light of a Friday evening.  This was not a random crime.  It spoke of planning, intent, patient fury and the map of suspects led right to Jason Hunt.

It was dark by now and the crime scene techs had left Melissa Hunt’s house.  The body was at the coroner’s office for the formality of a homicide declaration.  There was no need to await that to dig into Jason’s life.  Obligatory, but likely fruitless, a drop by to Jason’s house on Saturday morning was the last part of the initial phase of the investigation.  Chet and Gia figured, it would be the wrap up once they completed the ballistics, deep dive into Hunt’s whereabouts yesterday. The computer forensics would, like so many other cases, not be necessary.

— Saturday Morning — 18 hours into the investigation

The door to Jason’s suburban house opened.  He lived in a development south of the city attempting to blend back into society after ten years of incarceration that turned on the prosecutor’s office.  The payout to him from the work of the Innocence Project was enough to get him his $250,000 house free and clear, a shiny new red Ford truck, back pay and pension restoration from his years lost in prison.  His part time job at the local non-chain hardware store was just enough to keep his social skills on the mend after living years like a rat in a cage subject to the fear, anxiety and abuse that attends men in prison convicted of abusing children. The compounding of that experience was that he was innocent. His children were poisoned against him by his ex-wife in an effort to punish him for leaving her. The slow realization as they grew older that they had been manipulated; by their mother, psychologists and others into telling stories that they would come to realize were complete fabrications. They dealt with the double hit of having their mother use them in such a way and the guilt of having dealt their father a life-altering decade as an innocent man believed to be a child abuser. Their mom was a memory for all three of them, two boys and a girl. She ended up alone in her home in the fading light of a Friday smoking as she inhaled her last.

The detectives had already contacted the children, now all adults, to inform them their mother had been murdered. The daughter was unimpressed. A new mother of her own, at home, while her husband was at work at the Ford plant 30 minutes away, she didn’t even offer to let the officers in.

“So, that’s what you’re here for then? To tell me that?” she asked as they remained on her small front porch.

The officers were surprised at her almost hostile tone that they had dared interrupt her day with the news of her mother’s murder.

“Yes, Ma’am,” one of the formulaically replied. “That’s the office policy. Before it becomes public we want to inform the next of kin.”

“I ain’t kin,” she angrily shot back as she starting closing the door while her infant baby was wide-eyed staring at the doorstep visitors.

“Well, “Ma’am,” the officer reached out with a business card. “If you have any further questions….” She touched the card bending it toward her and dropped the corner. It fell from the officer’s hand and he fumbled to pick it up as she shut the door.

The vic’s son was walking out of work in an industrial parkway south of Cleveland. His jeans stained from previous days at work no doubt.

“Sir, excuse me,” the officer politely said walking up to him.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he nervously asked. He had been in some scrapes with the law before; underage drinking; theft from a Home Depot. Mostly juvenile stuff, but some of the officers knew him by name. Not these two. They were on this specific duty to inform the next of kin of the death of a relative.

“Mr. Hunt?”

“Yeah.”

“Sir, sorry to inform you. Your mother Melissa Hunt has been murdered.” The officers studied his face. It didn’t change. In fact, it oddly seemed frozen.

“I knew it.”

“Pardon?” one of the officers reflexively said.

“I knew it.

“What do you want,” Jason said through the partially open door.

“Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes, who’s asking?”

Chet and Gia on cue opened up their wallets with their badges.  Jason figured from the obvious guns on their hip that they were not selling rooftop solar systems.

“Mind if we talk to you?” Chet asked.

Jason paused thinking back to what he had learned about such interactions and how to best proceed.  He tilted his head and with a knowing change to his face expressing, “whatever” he opened the door signaling they could enter.

As they entered the foyer, they waited for him to walk to wherever it was they were going to talk.  Seasoned, they watched his body language, his facial expressions (there were none) and the pace of his walk, the steadiness of his gait and where he led them.  To the small kitchen table he walked and pulled away a chair for one of them.

“Water or anything to drink?” He asked

“Sure, you have coffee?  We had a late night.”  Chet was not asking for coffee or mentioning his late night for small talk filler.  He wanted to watch their suspect handle coffee as the typical pressure of detectives in his house, his space, began to make the physiological changes they always looked for.  Shakiness, rapid or unusually deep breathing, heart rate increase, pressures speech (or the converse of long, silences before responding to easy questions from them).  So many detectives thought they could wring a Bachelor’s degree in psychology out of the experience working with such suspects, victims of questionable openness and the general disdain the guilty have for speaking with them at all.  This was already different.

The coffee was made in a simple Keurig, cups inserted and the usual mechanical and water noises that makes.  Hunt didn’t say anything or even look in their direction for about 4 minutes or so while he made two cups, one for Chet and one for himself.

“Cream or sugar?” He asked his new house guest.

“Black is fine.  Thanks.”

Jason handed the cup to Chet and looked directly into Gia’s eyes with confidence.

“Nothing detective?” He asked her.

She was actually taken by surprise.  Cleared her throat quickly and replied, “No, I’m good.”

Jason immediately looked back at Chet.

“What can I help you with detective?” Jason asked calmly.

Chet was already sensing something was off.  This guy was not nervous.  He didn’t ask why they were there as so many do trying to project their innocence by feigning surprise at the arrival of law enforcement to their house.  This guy was different.  He was calm, taking his time, not shaking.  No cracking voice.  Nothing.  It was as if he knew and in his mind was saying, “fuck it, you got nothing.”  But, more than that, Chet sensed something new.  He could not put his finger on it.

Chet tilted his head, a rare moment of poise disrupted.  Then, he started as he often does in such situations.

“You know why you are here,” he asked expecting a fairly prompt affirmation from his calm table mate.

Jason took a sip of his coffee and as the cup came away from his mouth.  He swallowed normally and replied, “Does she talk,” he responded looking over at Gia.

She was pissed and started shaking her head slightly side to side.  Chet saw what was happening.  Hunt had thrown her off.  On purpose.  He was gaining the upper hand of the tension which usually worked to the detectives’ favor in such initial interactions.  Something was not right, he thought again.

Chet’s brain worked quickly through a bunch of options and the novelty of what was happening.

“Mr. Hunt, your former wife,” he paused to scan Hunt’s expression and continued quickly.  “She’s been killed.”

He quickly oscillated between saying, “she is dead” and “she has been killed.”  Assuming Hunt was their guy, he wanted to watch as their killer heard it from someone else that the woman he undoubtedly wanted killed since his release from prison 18 months ago was dead.

Hunt slightly raised his eyebrows but didn’t respond.  He took a sip of his coffee and his eyes never left Chet’s.  He nodded his head in an understanding way and calmly offered, “sounds like a bad day for you two.”

Again, what the fuck was this Chet thought.  Gia was lost.  She was experienced to be sure, but the calm, steely certainty of this guy with the two of them in his house was eerie.  How was he doing this, she thought.  But, she did not let her expression betray what she was thinking.

Chet decides perhaps it is time to push a bit.

“You want to tell us where you were yesterday?” He asked.

“When?”

Chet calmly continued.  “Let’s start in the morning.  Where were you yesterday morning?”

“Baltimore,” he replied without hesitation.  Chet looked over at Gia for a moment and then back at Hunt.  Chet knew he was their guy.  He just could not figure out what had turned this conversation into the oddity that it was.

“What were you doing there,” Chet asked.

“Checking out of a hotel.  Around 11 am.”

“What hotel was that?”

“It’s the one you have written on the notebook in your pocket,” Hunt replied.

Chet pressed his lips together.  He was not having difficulty hiding his frustration

“Take the turnpike did you?”

“Indeed” Hunt replied confidently, smiling.

Chet had seen this before, rarely, but he had seen it.  A definitive, basically sole possible suspect in a murder, and his alibi was so solid it was as if it was planned.

“What’s in Baltimore,” Chet asked.

“A hotel.” Hunt replied clearly not answering with a response Chet was seeking.

“How long were you there, in Baltimore?”

Hunt tilted his head and looked toward Chet with a “hey, come on, you know the answer to these questions” kind of look.  He answered anyhow.  “I was there 7 days.”

Chet nodded.  He looked to either side.

“You mind if we look around?”

“Got a warrant?”

“Well, now, you know the answer to that question.”

Hunt stood up calmly, sipped from his coffee mug.  He looked over at Gia, smiling slightly saying politely, “I guess I will be seeing you two again then.”

Chet pushed away from the table and Gia followed him slightly surprised their interview was over.  They both nodded at their suspect and said their half-hearted, not authentic thank yous for his time and walked out the front door.

Neither of them talked as they walked to their car.  As the doors shut and Chet started the car, Gia started.

“What the fuck was that?  I mean, he was not even nervous we were there.  No stumbling. Cocky even.”

Chet thought a moment and responded, “Yeah, something is not right about that whole thing.  But, we will see how smart he really is.”

Chet called the office and asked for a search warrant to be drawn up for Hunt’s house including all his electronic devices.  Surely, the hit man he obviously hired would exist in electronic traces on those devices.  Bank records as well would be part of the warrant.  You cannot hire a hitman in these day and age without paying him in a way that they knew they could trace.

Gia knew what it meant at this point.  “I guess we are cracking open the vic’s equipment then.”  Chet didn’t respond but she knew he would agree.

— Sunday morning —

Hunt walked toward his front door, coffee in hand again.  The knocking and yelling was so performative at this point for him.

“Sheriff’s office.  Open up.  We have a search warrant.”

He casually opened the door and ten uniformed officers rushed in with two of them pushing him to the wall of the small room at the front of his house.  They both noticed a neatly stacked pile of electronic devices on a small table near them.

The officers flooded into the house with one of them asking, “Is there anyone else in the house?  Do you have any firearms?”

Hunt tilted his head.  “Really?  Guns?  I’m the only one here.  And, no, I don’t have any firearms.  You all know that.”  The two officers released their grip on his sleeves on either side of him and stood between him and the rest of the officers milling about his downstairs.

After fifteen minutes of searching, the officers all came down and convened with the captain in charge of the search.  Each of them silently nodded their heads side to side indicating they found nothing they were looking for.

Hunt smiled and gestured to the small pile of electronics on the table near the door.  “I could have saved you all the effort.”

The captain looked at him angrily and motioned for one of the officers to grab the pile of electronics.  The officer hastily wrote down what each item was on an inventory form and shoved it into Hunt’s chest.  They were gone.