On their way to Child Protective Services, the detectives stopped for a bite to eat. Since the drive through line was so long, they parked the car and walked inside.
The detectives were standing in line at In-N-Out burger. They had just ordered and were waiting patiently when Chanello spoke, “Halle said Donny had broken Melanie’s table. We need to make sure we get that evidence. There’s probably a good chance she took it out to the trash bin so call detective Morrison and have him get an evidence team out to Melanie’s right away.”
“Good idea,” said Mangino.
“Detective Morrison, this is detective Mangino.”
“I’m here.”
“How’s our suspect?”
“He is still waiting to be arrested but doesn’t know it yet.
“Has he gone anywhere suspiciously. Maybe led you to some evidence?”
“No. He just eats a lot of fast food. Do you have any timeframe?”
“We will probably be by in a couple of hours. We are checking out a couple of other things first. I need you to send an evidence team to Melanie’s and have them look for a broken table in the dumpster.”
“I’ll make the call right now, but they aren’t going to be happy going through a thousand different people’s crap.”
“We’ll just be glad it isn’t you or me. Tell them this is the key piece of evidence that is going to solve the crime.”
“You are full of it, but I’ll be sure to send them your love.”
“Thanks.”
She turned back to Chanello. “Even if we can’t get the broken table it won’t matter.”
“Not true. All we have to do is put Halle on the stand saying Melanie told her the Donny broke the table, and then show all that broken glass and the jury will see his anger firsthand. We’re not just talking anger, but violent anger which turned to rage.” He looked over at her saying, “you know what happens next.”
“Murder?”
“You’re damn right,” Chanello snickered. “You should never underestimate the smallest piece of evidence, especially when it corroborates someone else’s testimony. Each juror will put a different weight on what they see. One will like this piece of evidence while someone else might look at something different. They got their food and walked to the car.
“If Donny did it, why are we going to Sonia’s after lunch?” Kate asked doubtfully.
“I don’t know.” Chanello hit his hands on the steering wheel. “We have to check everything out. I can only hope that if there isn’t anything there that she makes good coffee.”
After eating in the car, they drove to the government building where Child Protective Services was. They arrived at the office of Sonia Shriver around 1:15. She was a petite woman, about five feet two inches tall. As she spoke Mangino noticed her dirty blond hair. The color seemed to be accentuated by sweat and Mangino figured she was the type who exercised during lunch. Sonia welcomed them in and played the tape a couple of times for them.
“Hi. This is Melanie. I don’t know if I should be calling but I might have some information you would be interested in. My number is 862-.” The audio could not be understood after this.
Detective Chanello spoke, “We need to get her family to verify if this is her voice, and we need to look at Melanie’s telephone records to see if she called this number.”
“Do you think you know who killed her,” asked Sonia?
“We’re narrowing the field down. We think it might be her ex boyfriend. What we need you to do is just keep quiet. Don’t answer any questions by the media. We don’t want to compromise the investigation.”
Sonia took some offense to this. “I won’t. I want this crime solved as much as you do.”
“We need you to do one more thing for us. Try to find out if you have ever had a complaint about a Jay Massey. We think that is who Melanie was calling you about. His father is Michael Massey,” Chanello said. “She had a note hidden under her couch. It read Michael Massey with the initials of child protective services by his name. It must have something to do with his son.”
“The union guy?”
“Yes. The union guy and their pension fund manager. That’s where the real cheesecake is.
“Can I ask you why you think it’s him.”
“Not at this time. I don’t want to seem rude, but we can’t say too much about it now.”
“I understand. I’ll look back over the last couple of years.”
The detectives left. During the ride down the elevator Chanello was quiet.
“She is a pretty sharp lady,” said detective Mangino.
“Yeah. I’m glad she remembered that call. While most people who follow their hunches are wrong, it takes only one small lead to cause an arrest. Of course, this lead has caused confusion. At first, we knew it was Donny. Then we have Marco, but we can’t figure out why he would have done it.”
“He did it because he is a psycho. Don’t you remember what his eyes looked like. I thought I was looking at the devil himself.”
“Donny is the only one we have the strongest motive for. I hope to God if we get that warrant that we will get some good forensic evidence that will link him to the crime.”
“If we don’t?”
“We’ll keep searching. We have two other strong suspects, Mr. Massey and Marco.
After they got in the car there was silence.
Do you want to know something about Sonia?” Chanello asked jokingly with a smile.
Detective Mangino was staring at him trying to figure out what he wanted to say.
“What? Tell me,” she said with a grin.
“You know who she is dating don’t you?”
“I haven’t got a clue. Who is it?”
He looked at her and looked away. A smile crossed his face as he looked back at her. “Dr. Jones!”
“How do you know?”
“We're step brothers. Besides, you didn’t see his picture on her bookshelf?”
“I didn’t but I wasn’t exactly looking.”
“Poor lady.” They were both laughing hysterically as they drove back to police headquarters.
The warrant to arrest Donny was being delayed by at least a day. They had three strong suspects, but Donny was their best one. Searching his house might provide some strong evidence. But now it was a waiting game. Mangino finally went home.