06 - Crimes and Punishments

Crimes and Punishments

Chapter 01

         CSI night shift supervisor Jeff Randall had gone for a long weekend to visit Sue Beth and Joshua Wilson at their new home. After an eventful few days, he came back with Ken Milton arrested and in handcuffs. The mass murderer, who had killed their single mother and eight more innocent people at a school for exceptional children, had tracked the two young orphans cross-country, killing an SFPD officer during that time. On his return, Randall walked into the crime lab building only to find mass confusion.

         “Okay, Randall,” said a tired-appearing Angela. “Tell us what happened, and we’ll fill you in on what’s been going on here. You first.” She and the rest of the shift’s forensic agents had been taking a short break while pulling a double shift when Randall walked in.

         He sat down after getting a cup of hot coffee. “You wouldn’t believe the place where the kids live now. I’m going to have to take Bob out to dinner as thanks for telling me about Walker and his mansion.” Months earlier, Captain Bob Steele had met with a longtime friend of his, Jack Notting, an employee of an eccentric multibillionaire. Jack’s employer was William Walker. This multibillionaire, years before, had converted a large mansion into a safe haven for forgotten, alone, or abused senior citizens.

         “Wasn’t it depressing being around so many old people?” asked Simon, the youngest in the room. To him, though, old meant anyone over 40. He had trouble wrapping his mind around those in their 90s or even 70s being interesting. “I mean, I’ve heard old people just sit around comparing illnesses or showing endless pictures of their grandkids.” He grimaced at this boring mental picture.

         Randall grinned at the memories he brought away of the elders at Walker’s home. One evening, a retired fan dancer entertained him and a few others with a delightfully raunchy dance. Sophia might no longer be the youthful woman who tantalized her male admirers; however, she still knew how to excite and tease by waving those large fans exposing bits of skin now and then. “Simon, I wish you could have met Sophia. No, on second thought, you’re way too innocent to appreciate her dancing.”

         He went on to describe the large hidden caverns he with Jack and Walker had discovered by accident underneath the mansion. “You were trapped there?” Jake looked at his boss wide-eyed. “In the dark after the flashlight batteries gave out?” Randall nodded, remembering feeling helpless surrounded by the pitch-blackness of the cavern filled with animal bones. He hoped never to be in such a situation ever again.

         “Before the lights went out, Jack found something interesting that he’d like us to run for DNA.” Randall opened the bag he’d been carrying and took out a brown cardigan sweater. He slowly peeled it back revealing an ancient bone that resembled a human femur. There was a piece of rotted cloth attached at one end convincing the agents looking at the bone that this must be human and not animal.

         Randall returned the bone and sweater to the bag then turned to Angela. “Now it’s your turn. What’s been going on while I’ve been gone?” He had noticed the exhaustion on the faces of the crew he supervised.

         “Not yet, boss.” This came from Anthony Greene, the young man Randall was planning on recommending for the day-shift supervisor position. His forensic skills and ability to deal with difficult people impressed Randall who often had run-ins with the more abrasive people in the labs. “How did you get Milton? The last we’d heard the bastard was somewhere in Nevada.”

         Randall settled back in his chair, knowing these friends of his wanted to know the complete story. While he was marshaling his thoughts, Mary, the last member of his shift, got up and brought him another cup of coffee. Looking at her and then Angela, his thoughts returned to the mansion and the beautiful redhead, Samantha Ward, he’d met there. The last time he’d seen her, the woman had been lying on Walker’s living room floor, covered in blood from a gunshot head wound.

         “First, the kids are doing fine and have settled in with many surrogate grandparents spoiling them.” Randall rubbed his neck, the phantom pain from Sue Beth’s stranglehold hugs lingering even now. “They have their own rooms, and I think everyone is competing to see who can be on the baby-sitting list. Their favorite, though, is Edith.”

         He then went on to explain how Walker was given up for adoption at birth and spent years and part of his enormous fortune tracking down his birth mother, Edith Cartwright. He had brought her to his mansion under the guise of adding her to his loving and protective home for elders without letting her know of their relationship. “Shortly before I’d arrived to check on the kids, Edith found out she had her son back after over 50 years of longing for him. She also took his two wards to her heart and treats them as her grandchildren.”

         He remembered the sight of her and the children sitting at the table in Walker’s living room. As the orderlies wheeled Samantha out on the gurney for the short trip to the hospital, he saw Edith trying to keep the two children from seeing the younger woman’s head wound. He’d never forget Walker kneeling in anguish beside the redhead minutes before, as he tried to staunch the flowing blood. “Joshua was the one who incapacitated Milton.” His listeners just stared at him when Randall said this blunt statement. It was hard for them to imagine the quiet boy catching a mass murderer.

         “Let me explain.” Randall took a deep drink of the cooling coffee then continued. “The three of us and Joshua had discovered the caverns after finding a hidden stairway down to them. Unknown to us, as we explored various tunnels, Joshua returned up the stairs to Walker’s rooms on the fourth floor. On his way out, he closed the big wooden door between the stairway and the caverns. There was no handle on the cavern side, so he accidentally trapped us for what seemed like hours. That’s when the flashlight batteries died on us.”

         Mary got up once again to refill his coffee cup without saying a word, as she didn’t want to interrupt him. “Well, suddenly the door slammed open, and Joshua was back screaming that Milton was up in the apartment with the three females, Samantha, Edith, and Sue Beth.” The thought that her mother’s killer was menacing the sweet little girl they’d all met months earlier shocked those listening to complete silence.

         “When we finally got up those stairs and back to the apartment, we found Milton on the floor, unconscious after Joshua attacked him with a heavy paperweight. He’d first got a blow in on Milton’s knee, fracturing his kneecap. He ended up striking the man on his chin as he fell.” Randall paused before continuing. He couldn’t get the image of what he’d seen on the floor out of his mind.

         “Before Joshua arrived, Milton had been threatening the three females with the .357 Magnum he’d used here to slaughter the people at the school. Edith came after Milton with a vase, but when he shot it out of her hands, Samantha tried to wrestle the gun from him.” He stopped and smiled at those sitting around the break room tables. “You’d all like Samantha. She runs the place for Walker.” He went on to describe the woman he found fascinating in glowing detail, unaware of the jealousy he was causing in the two women seated near him.

          “Milton shot Samantha just before Joshua got there, and when we arrived, we found her bleeding on the floor from where the bullet had creased the side of her head.” He then told them of the wild ride to the hospital in the middle of a snowstorm with the ambulance overturning halfway there. He followed this by telling of the ensuing rescue by Jack, who had been following Samantha, Walker, and the two orderlies.

         “Well,” asked Jake dryly, “I thought you said you were only going for a quiet weekend with the kids. Is this your idea of a quiet time?” Amidst laughter, Randall finished telling them about the rest of the weekend then turned back to Angela.

         “Now, as I said before, your turn.”

Chapter 02

         “Well,” said Angela, “it started with finding a poisoned stray dog on Friday.” Heads all around the table started nodding agreement.

         “What does that have to do with our department?” Randall looked confused but patiently waited for an explanation.

         Jake jumped in at this point. “By Saturday morning, two more dogs had died; all of them were strays from around the Tenderloin area.” He looked over at Angela. “When did they find the first man?”

         Angela thought back before answering, “The police got a call about 10 on Saturday morning that a body was behind a dumpster on Eddy.” Eddy Street was one of the main areas in the San Francisco Tenderloin district. Seedy hotels and bars at one time lined most of its length, but the area was undergoing gentrification now. “He turned out to be a homeless man with a record for public intoxication, Peter Benson. Dr. Burke determined he died of poisoning just as the dogs had.”

         “At that point,” said Jake, “the case was officially ours.” Randall sat quietly, wondering what happened next to cause all his team’s exhaustion. They could easily handle and solve the death of one person with no problem. “By Saturday afternoon, the police found three more bodies of homeless men, all dead from poisoning.” Jake looked around the table at his fellow agents as he continued with the death count.

         “Four? All from the Tenderloin?” Randall asked this of the room in general, but Jake answered him.

         “All in or around it, yes, Eddy, O’Farrell. Same as the dogs.” Jake laughed without humor, “The police even found one man in the parking lot of Glide Memorial, if you can believe the audacity of the killer to do that.” Glide was a church that offered help and hot meals to the homeless and people just down on their luck; to kill someone there was like a slap in the face of those trying to help.

         “So, there have been four bodies. What have you found out so far?” Randall sipped his now cold coffee, making a face at the taste of it.

         “Wait, Randall,” Anthony spoke up for the first time. “That was four by Saturday afternoon. By this morning, the count’s up to 12.” At Randall’s horrified look, Anthony finished, “The police found the last one yesterday, so we’re hoping that’s all of them.”

         “Okay, fill me in on what you’ve got so far.” Their supervisor stood up to get another cup of coffee then decided against it. He didn’t know if his sour stomach was from too much coffee or the news of the dozen murders. Leaning against a counter, he waited for someone to give him some good news, if any existed.

Chapter 03

         Jake decided to give his data first. “The only common denominators we’ve found so far are they are all men and only recently homeless.”

         “Right, the wife of the first one found, Peter Benson, kicked him out a week ago. He lost his job last month when his boss found out about his drug habit.” Anthony didn’t even have to refer to his notes as he’d been the one to speak with Benson’s wife and remembered her bitterness. The man had gone through most of their savings in that last month, most of it going up his nose.

         “The story’s much the same for the other eleven,” Jake continued. “Drugs, drinking, or gambling addictions for all of them.” He shrugged. “Other than that, they’re just nondescript homeless men.”


         Randall thought for a few minutes then started throwing out questions to his crew. Sometimes a fresh mind sees something tired people didn’t. “Is there any way they know each other, sleep or eat at the same shelter perhaps? Could they have met in their lives before becoming homeless?” Everyone answered in the negative to each question, already having checked these possibilities out.

         Slowly, one by one, the tired forensic agents left the break room to return to checking out the evidence from the dozen poisoned men. Randall stayed behind to mull over the case in the quiet room. The pager in his shirt pocket suddenly going off startled him. It was from Jake requesting he come to the evidence room.

         As he walked in, he saw Jake and Anthony, both wearing the required latex gloves all agents wore while examining evidence. The men huddled over items laid out on the long evidence table. “What did you guys find?” he asked walking up to join them. In front of them, he saw various dirty items of clothing, a tattered and nearly empty wallet, bits of nondescript paper, and some pieces of jewelry.

         “This.” Jake held up a ring with a design of what seemed like a mouse or rat on it. The band of the ring looked to be of silver while the design was inlaid green jade. “Seems an expensive trinket for a homeless guy to keep, wouldn’t you say?”

         After putting on his own gloves, Randall took the ring and examined it more closely. “Maybe it’s a gift from his wife, a sentimental keepsake.”

         “I don’t think so.” Anthony told him of the wife’s bitterness. “If it were from her, he’d have hocked it first for drug money.”

         Mary walked into the room right at that moment. “Hey, guys, I found something strange from the Comeau man’s personal effects.” David Comeau was the second homeless man found; the owner of a restaurant discovered the body slumped behind a dumpster in the alley. In trying to identify him, the police discovered he recently had dropped out of college to take up a life on the streets. His family in Oregon refused to come down and claim his body when contacted by the police. In fact, they sounded relieved when notified of their son’s death. The rap sheet of the young man was long with many arrests for public intoxication. These went back to his late teens when he left home and started college in San Francisco.

         Mary took an item out of a small plastic evidence bag and put it on the table in front of the three men. She frowned when she saw the astonished looks they gave the item. “What?” Does this mean something to you?” She looked down at what she had put on the table.

         It was a silver ring with a green jade inlaid design of what was a cow, ox, or maybe a buffalo.

Chapter 04

         “Could it just be a coincidence?” Jake picked up the second ring, turning it this way and that to check out for any inscription on the inner band. Finding none, he handed it to Randall. As he did, he noticed “that look” on his supervisor’s face. It usually meant something had clicked in the older man’s mind, a memory triggered or a clue important to the intuitive man. “What is it, boss?

         Randall didn’t answer but took off almost at a run for the other evidence room where Angela was processing the belongings of one more murdered homeless man. Anthony shrugged at the other two agents then they all quickly followed Randall, wondering what they had missed.

         As they entered the room, they heard his low baritone voice asking, “Angie, did you find any jewelry yet?” At her response in the negative, he frowned. “Are you sure? Did you check his pockets?”

         “Of course, first thing. What are you looking for?” The blonde looked over at the other two men, but they only shrugged. They all watched as Randall scrutinized the evidence laid out in front of him on the table. The detritus found in the pockets of homeless people often provided more information than outsiders commonly realized. As it had rained on and off over the weekend, the various papers Angela discovered were lying under a heat lamp as she attempted to dry them out. One, though, caught Randall’s attention.

         Randall reached out to pick up a small damp piece of paper. It was a pawn ticket from a shop found on Geary near the Alcazar Theatre. He handed the ticket to Angela. “I’d recommend you call them and see what he pawned.” He stopped then continued. “What’s his name, by the way?”

         She looked at her notes then said, “Edward Matheson. An investor who made it big in the dot.com days before gambling his fortune away. Single and previously a ladies’ man from what I’ve found out so far.” She looked around the table then found what she wanted, a slender black address book. “I thumbed through this,” picking it up, “and found mostly female names in it.” She handed it over to Randall. “Note the comments written beside the names.”

         His right eyebrow went up at the explicit details next to some of the women’s names. Matheson seemed more a sexual predator than a ladies’ man. Even though Randall had an open mind about sex, some of the comments made him glad the man would no longer be bedding innocent women. He put the book back on the table wishing he could wash his hands of the filth inside.

         “Check with the pawnshop, Angie.” He started to leave the room. “If you find what I think you will, call me immediately.” He took off towards the evidence storage lockers and the unexamined belongings of the remaining nine men.

         “I hate when he does that,” sighed Angela. “Do either of you know what he’s discovered?” At their denials, she went over to the phone and dialed the number listed on the pawn ticket. Jake and Anthony stood by, waiting to hear if what she found out would clue them in on their supervisor’s thought processes.

         They listened intently as Angela spoke to the store’s owner and waited while he checked out the stub’s number against his inventory. As she hung up the phone, Jake asked impatiently, “Well, what did he hock?”

         “Does a silver ring mean anything to you guys?” She smiled as she realized what she said meant something to the men, knowing the ring was, in fact, important to this case. “A silver ring with a green jade inlay of a rooster.” They then turned around as they heard Randall’s voice from just outside in the corridor. He had returned to the evidence room to ask another question and heard Angela’s conversation.

         His words did nothing to clear up this mystery. “A rooster is also known as a cock.”

Chapter 05

         “Guys, put it together. A rat, a buffalo, and now a cock. Doesn’t that mean something to you?” Their blank looks told him that it didn’t, but Randall wasn’t ready to let them off the hook. He taught the agents under his supervision by making them figure out clues on their own. In this way, the SFPD forensic agents were some of the best in the country.

         “Keep checking out the other men’s belongings. I’m off to that pawnshop to pick up the ring. You have my cell number in case you find anything else of importance.” With that, Randall gave them his angelic smile and walked out, leaving three confused people behind him.

         ”I really, REALLY hate it when he does that,” muttered Angela again, her personal mantra so often expressed about Randall.

         Within half an hour, Randall was at the pawnshop and holding the ring in his latex gloved hand. As he slid it into a paper bindle, he asked the patiently waiting owner if he’d ever tried on the ring.

         “No, I just put it in the storage area in case the man came back for it.” The man then asked, suddenly realizing Randall hadn’t paid him, “You said this ring was part of a murder investigation. Where’s my money for you to redeem it?”

         Randall handed him a card with the sheriff’s name and phone number on it that he carried for just such occasions. “Call him. He’ll cover it.” He knew doing this irritated the sheriff, but tweaking the nose of the sheriff now and then was a small satisfaction that came with the job. He also knew the man would reimburse the pawnshop owner…eventually; much as he disliked the sheriff at times, he knew the man was a rarity, an honest politician.

         Driving back to the labs, Randall wondered if his agents had figured out the clues in front of them yet. He suddenly decided to make a detour and headed for the Tenderloin district. Sometimes being at the scene of a crime helped him figure out a mystery. After parking, then locking his SUV securely, he headed up Eddy to where police found the body of Peter Benson, the first victim. The mouthwatering fragrances coming from the many restaurants along the way tantalized him, though.

         When he stopped at a smaller Vietnamese one for a bowl of their beef noodle soup, Randall looked around at the decorations on the wall as he ate. He smiled and nodded his head in satisfaction as he saw he had been on the right track about the rings. Finishing his delicious meal, he asked and received permission to keep the small laminated menu that showed items similar to those portrayed on the wall. Randall decided not to examine the crime scene after all but returned to the lab, the menu safely tucked into his inside jacket pocket.

         Upon entering the break room, he found his entire crew there. Angela looked up from her coffee mug and asked her supervisor what they all had been discussing, “How did you know that these victims all had similar rings?”

         “And what do they mean?” Jake asked, still confused. “So what if the men had rings?”

         “Jake, the rest of you, connect the rings with the area where they found the men, and what do you get?” Randall still was insisting that they figure this out on their own. When they still looked confused, he threw out one more hint.

         “Guys, consider the third ring you found and the man who had it. What does that suggest to you? Also, the design on the first ring and the man who owned it?” Randall was still trying to figure out the meaning of the second one to the college student dropout, but the first and third rings made perfect sense to him.

         “Come on, guys, think about it!”

Chapter 06

         Returning to the evidence room where they had left all the rings, Randall’s crew showed them to him. Each had an inlaid jade design ranging from a cat to a dragon. When Randall added the ring from the pawnshop, there were a dozen rings laid out on the table. He pulled out the menu from his pocket and placed it on the table next to the rings.

         “Do you see anything familiar?” He walked away and watched the others without saying another word. Casually leaning against the doorjamb behind them, Randall waited as the connection between the rings and menu sunk in. Anthony reached down and slowly rearranged the order of the rings, placing the one depicting the rat first in line with the pig design last. He looked over at his boss who silently mouthed the word, “Yes.”

         One by one, the others understood. The designs on the rings represented the twelve Vietnamese zodiac symbols as pictured on the restaurant’s menu. “Right, boss,” said Anthony, “but what does it all mean?”

         “I’m not sure,” he said walking back to the table. “The first man with a rat ring was a rat to his wife, wasn’t he?” The others offered him tentative agreement to this. “I haven’t figured out the second man and his buffalo ring yet. Any ideas?” The others thought for a couple minutes, but when nothing came to them, Randall continued. “You also have to admit the third guy, Matheson, was thinking not with his brain but with his…” Randall stopped as he suddenly remembered women were present in the room.

         Anthony didn’t let his slightly embarrassed boss stop there. “You mean he was a player, a swordsman? In other words, he…”

         “Yes, yes, that’s what I meant.” Randall interrupted him then looked over to see both Mary and Angela hiding grins behind their hands. The men didn’t bother to hide theirs. “Now, look into the histories of the other men and see if you can find a connection with the ring designs.” Quickly, before he put his other foot in his mouth, he left the room and headed for his office. As he left, he could hear giggling coming from the two women.

Chapter 07

         Hours later, Randall still was sitting at his desk reviewing the notes from his crew on the dozen homeless men. He managed to match the pig ring found on Ezra Martin to the man’s character. His addiction to food had left the morbidly obese man impotent and finally resorting to spousal abuse in his rage and frustration. Martin had dropped out of sight soon after their divorce according to his wife who cried when notified of his death.

         The only other match he could make was between Joe Maloney and his snake ring, although the connection was tenuous. The man was a snake in the grass because of his past actions on the job, wheeling and dealing in various investments and skirting along the edges of the law. One too many shady deals had seen him just ahead of the police and out on the street.

         As for the remainder of the men, even though Randall read and reread all the evidence before him, he couldn’t make any sense of a tie between the rings and their owners. If it’s not their characters, he thought, what else could it be? Hoping to get an inspiration online, he booted up his computer then Googled on “Vietnamese zodiac signs”. Page after page of web sites popped up, and he began reading through them. One in particular gave him an idea, and he skimmed through his agents’ notes again.

         The first one on Peter Benson contained information from his driving license including his birthday, March 23, 1948. A feeling of excitement starting to build within him, Randall cross-checked this date against the birth dates listed for the zodiac sign of the rat. It fit.

         Next, he found the license for Ezra Martin and almost yelled out loud when Martin’s birthday of November 18, 1959 confirmed it matched a date listed under the pig symbol. Rapidly finding and confirming that each of the men’s birthdays fell within the dates for each of the twelve zodiac symbols, Randall paged his staff to meet in his office.

         After they all arrived, he arranged the copies of the driver’s licenses and the hard copy of the Vietnamese zodiac signs with dates on his desk. “I was wrong in thinking the symbols on the rings coincided with the characters of the homeless men.” Because their boss didn’t hesitate to admit when he was in error on something, this neither surprised nor shocked his people. Randall didn’t expect any of them, including himself, to always be perfect, but he did demand that they all learn from their mistakes.

         He went on to explain the correlation between the men’s birthdays and the different zodiac signs then sat back to see if the rest of them agreed with him or could poke holes in his theory. After they all had checked and double-checked the dates, Randall then asked the room at large, “I have some more for you to think about. Where did the murderer find out the birth dates of these particular men? How did this person administer the poison? Lastly, what was his reason for murdering them?” He then sat back and listened to the others hash out possible answers.

         “Where do you have to give your birth date nowadays if you’re homeless?” Mary asked the first obvious question. She got responses of a blood bank for selling blood, free clinics for health issues, and some shelters with strict regulations that required registering. Angela and Jake volunteered to track down these places to try to find a central place that all twelve men might have visited.

         The second question had Simon, the newest member of the staff, heading for the computer in the DNA lab to research poisons. When he read that some were absorbable through the skin, he forwarded the rings to trace. The logical place for finding the poison was on them, he surmised.

         It came as no surprise when the reports returned positive for sodium pentachlorophenate. Trace amounts of this white powder were still inside small compartments underneath the rings’ jade designs. A thin layer of wax initially held it in place. When the men’s body heat melted that wax, the toxic powder leached into their skin, eventually causing their death. Further examination by Dr. Burke of the men’s bodies revealed liver necrosis, a symptom of high doses.

         The last question stymied them all. None of the twelve men have known each other in their previous lives and had radically different personalities. Even if one of them had somehow triggered a stranger’s murderous rage, how were the other men involved? None of the forensic agents could come up with an answer.

         After Angela and Jake left to start their research, the rest of them cleared out of Randall’s office to finish the loose ends of documenting the evidence of what Simon had once jokingly called “The Dirty Dozen”. Randall frowned when he heard this disrespectful comment, so Simon never used it again, at least within his supervisor’s hearing.

Chapter 08

         Later that day, the entire staff once again joined Randall in the break room to discuss their findings. Simon told of the poison on the rings first, and then Jake and Angela took over. None of the places they’d canvased showed that all the men frequented them. However, one name kept popping up at each of the shelters, Xuan Trung.

         At each place, the two agents listened to stories about this young volunteer’s behavior around the increasing number of homeless men who came to San Francisco. One shelter after another asked the man to leave as his rudeness became more obvious and out of control. What the two of them found significant was that he always handled the registration procedure that included recording birth date, marital status, and past occupation, if any.

         Randall took out his cell phone and put in a call to Captain Steele. He passed on the information to him about Xuan Trung and that he was a strong suspect in the poisoning cases. On further research of the various police sources, no record of this man showed up. However, Mary did find a newspaper article from a local Vietnamese newspaper’s database about his family dating back two years. His father, a prominent restaurateur, died when shot standing in line at a bank’s merchant window. The murderer, a homeless panhandler who often accosted customers as they left the bank, one day became more daring.

         After shooting the father of Xuan Trung and wounding two other bank customers, the man demanded money from the horrified tellers and disappeared into the midday crowd outside. The police never identified him, and the case was still on the police books as unsolved. It seemed to Randall and his agents the son of the murdered man decided to take matters into his own hands after two years of frustration with the police.

         The next week passed with the belongings of the twelve poisoned men processed and logged, for use in a trial of their murderer some time in the future. More crimes in San Francisco occurred in the next few days for the SFPD forensic agents to analyze, and the case of the Vietnamese zodiac killings was now out of their department. A second week passed without any sign of Xuan Trung. His family closed ranks and gave no help to the police trying to find the young man.

         He didn’t appear at any of the homeless shelters looking for work, and his one VISA credit card showed no activity since the weekend of the poisonings. It was as if the man had fallen off the edge of the world. As time passed, he became the only suspect, and the files of the 12 men became the property of the police department that handled cold cases such as this.

         Where was Xuan Trung? Would the police ever find and catch him? Was he the murderer? Only time would tell, but for now Randall and his crew moved on to solve other crimes.