Chapter 7
Back at police headquarters, O’Reilly slumped in his chair. The start of a head ache began to throb just above his left eye, and he popped 2 pain pills and washed it back with a slug of coffee that had gone cold and sour tasting.
“Hey Sarge, make yourself useful and put on a fresh pot will ya. This takes like mud.”
“Screw you”, Miller replied, but there was no malice in his voice. He and O’Reilly had been best friends for too many years to count.O’Reilly chuckled and went about trying to sort out what had happened to Caulder to cause him to go so violently over the edge in such a short period of time.
“Sergeant, what do you think about Caulder? Do you think that he’s capable of killing in such a vicious manner?”
“Beats me sir. Profiling of this type of killing usually comes up with the quiet loners. That describes Caulder pretty well. He had no friends at Jacobs and Son from what I can tell.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing myself. I think we should find out where Caulder was brought up and see if anyone there knew anything about him and his family.”
“It says on his application to Jacobs and Son that he lived at 310 Cedar Avenue, apartment 2B here in Cleveland. We should go check it out to see if we can find out anything about him.”
“Grab your coat. Let’s go.”
They reached the Cedar Avenue apartment ten minutes later. It was a brown stone apartment in the older section of town. Winos roamed the streets in hopes of finding something to drink to help them make it through the day. Junkies and prostitutes were also noticeable, and when they saw the two police getting out of their cruiser, they made themselves scarce .
“Great neighborhood” Miller commented.
“Every city has one. This is Cleveland’s. Watch your back here sergeant. The locals will stick you with a knife and steal your wallet if given the chance, even if you are a cop.”
“Yes sir, I’ll keep an eye out.”
They went up to the front door and rang the buzzer for the superintendant’s apartment, a Mr. Turnbull.
“Yeah, what do you want?” the speaker crackled as the superanswered gruffly.”
“Cleveland police. Open the door. We need to look at one of your apartments.” O’Reilly ordered.
“You got a warrant?” the super asked.
“Open the door now or we’ll get the city inspectors over here to go over your place with a fine tooth comb. I’m sure they’ll find all kinds of infractions that’ll cost you all sorts of time and money to get fixed.”
The door creaked open and a short, balding man in a greasy undershirt opened the door. “Can I see some identification?” he asked, still somewhat obstinate.
They showed him their badges and he let them into the front foyer.
“I’m sorry detectives. You can’t be too careful, what with the neighborhood being the cesspool that it is. Junkies will try anything to get inside. Once that happens, they’ll rob you blind, or maybe kill you or both.” He was apologetic. It was apparent that he had had his share of problems with the locals in the past and was just being cautious.
“I’m chief inspector O’Reilly and this is my partner Sergeant Miller. We need to have a look inside apartment 2B. Its tenant, Jake Caulder, is a suspect in some crimes and we need to see if we can find anything that might help us with the case. What can you tell us about Caulder, Mr. Turnbull?”
“I never have had much to do with him. I’ve only seen him once or twice. He’s always fairly quiet and never has any visitors. He’s never been a problem. Always pays the rent on time.”
“Anything unusual about the way he’s acted lately?” O’Reillyasked.
“Like I said, I’ve only seen him a couple of times, and not for a while now. He seems like an okay guy. More tenants should be like him. It would make my job easier. A lot of the people that stay here are either pimps or drug dealers. Not the greatest of neighborhoods in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yeah we noticed. If it’s so bad, why don’t you move and become a superintendant somewhere with less crime.”
“I own this property. It wasn’t always like this, but things change. A bad element seemed to move into the area overnight and before I knew it, I was picking up dirty needles and every other kind of sick crap out of the stairwells every day. No one would offer me any money for this dump and so I’m stuck here whether I like it or not.”
“That’s too bad, Mr. Turnbull. I hope your luck turns around sometime. You look like you could use a break. Now we really need to see the apartment.” It was Sergeant Miller who had spoken.
“Life sucks, but what are you going to do. The elevator’s broken, so we’ll have to use the stairs.” Turnbull turned and led them up to the apartment. He opened the door for them and moved aside to let them enter to have a look around.
“Thanks, Mr. Turnbull. We shouldn’t be too long. We’ll let you know when we’re done.” Miller stated.
They let themselves in, and shut the door behind them.
“Turnbull seems like a nice enough sort.” It was Miller. “Life has dealt him some hard times. You never know, I guess.”
“Don’t let him fool you, sergeant. He’s just a slum landlord who is in violation of a lot of city bylaws. The elevator isn’t working and hasn’t been for quite a while I would think. There are no smoke detectors anywhere in sight and no extinguishers either. Half the lights are out in the hall ways and the railing on the stairs felt like it would fall off the wall if I gave it a good yank. I noticed those things in about five minutes without really looking too hard. If the inspectors did come around to check, he could be in a pile of trouble.” O’Reilly finished his sermon.
Miller was sorry that he had mentioned it. On more than one occasion, he had to listen as Sean lectured him about the ways of the world. Sean meant well, but Miller found it annoying none the less.
“Yes sir” Miller stated. “You are right.” Miller had the sense to just agree with Sean when he got like this. If he disagreed, he knew that he would be on the receiving end of more of Sean’s opinions. It was best to just let him get it out of his system and so he never argued with him.
“Let’s have a look around and see if we can figure out what makes Caulder tick.” Sean suggested. “You take the bathroom and I’ll look around out here.”
Miller went to have a look in the lavatory, while Sean checked around the living room. The bathroom was clean with a faint hint of toilet cleaner. He looked in the medicine cabinet and found three large bottles of antacid, a bottle of pain pills and various other sundries. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than that many bottles of antacid.
He returned to the living quarters and reported what he had found. “Everything in there seems to be in order. What is strange is the amount of heartburn medication. We should check to see if anyone purchases large amounts of the stuff. It could help us find him.”
“I agree.” The chief inspector said. “Call it in.”
“Yes sir.” He radioed into the station. It was Officer Cooper who picked up.
“Cooper, this is Sergeant Miller. Put word out to pharmacies to keep an eye out for anyone buying large amounts of stomach medicine. Have them call the station if that happens.”
“Okay Sarge. I’ll get on it right away.”
“Thanks Coop. Over.”
“Hey Sergeant, come here.” Sean was looking at a scrapbook he had found in a chest of drawers. “There are some newspaper clippings that are very interesting. The first one is from the Middletown Journal. It’s fifteen years old, dated Aug. 3rd, 1994.”
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