Nantucket Five-Spot by Steven Axelrod Page A

Roy Elkins. So she went to the actual post office the next Friday, poking around on her own time. When she saw that they opened up a courtesy window for express mail, she asked—did they only do it when the place got jammed up and they had the extra staff? How about the date in question? They looked it up: yes. Then she checked out the clerk on duty that day. And guess what? He had recently bought a flat screen TV with cash. He’d been eating at nice restaurants, shopping at Nordstrom’s. There was a post office record of the express mail package. But that slip could have been filled out any time. It was obvious then. Elkins paid the clerk to mail it, using his home label, on the day of the murder, so he could plausibly paint himself as crushed on line behind fifty Mexicans when the crime was going down. All he needed was an official time-stamp for his whereabouts.
    Elkins had been working in law enforcement for almost twenty years, so he knew how to manufacture an alibi. But he got careless. He missed one detail. He didn’t know about the express window. The clerk didn’t care. He took his money and did what he was told. The easiest five grand ever.
    The only problem was Special Agent Frances Tate, who had to see everything for herself and never quit until all her questions were answered.
    The FBI confiscated Elkins’ computer and Franny retrieved his deleted e-mails. He was in love with the woman. He wanted to marry her. She was selling him drugs and he was using heavily. When she dumped him he lost it. An ordinary crime of passion, but Elkins was meticulous in its execution. All that care and planning paid off. The FBI had no hard evidence—no prints, no DNA, no eye-witnesses. Franny’s evidence was circumstantial, and without a confession the DA warned that they could easily go to court and lose. They brought Elkins in on the drug charges, Tornovitch sweated him for seventeen hours in the interrogation room, but he stuck to his story. Even after two nights without sleep he knew it was good enough to save him from the lethal injection needle.
    So they compromised. Elkins walked on the murder, which was never officially solved. They convicted him on the drug charges, and he got ten years in jail. With some counts suspended for cooperation with the ongoing investigation and time off for good behavior, he was due to be out of jail in less than six months. He might go back to cocaine and he might even commit murder again, but we had the cold comfort of knowing he wouldn’t be financing his habits with a police pension or hiding behind a badge.
    As Jack liked to point out, it was still a significant case, a major scandal rehabilitated by the vision of a new LAPD, stringent in its standards and willing to work with the FBI to police itself. Despite his failed interrogation, Jack was remembered as the man who broke up an important police drug ring. Franny was furious and heartbroken.
    Jack told me, “Write it off as a victory and walk away.” That was what he did. He got promoted and went back to Washington. Franny let it go and followed him.
    I used the case in my “true crime” book. I told the truth about Elkins. He threatened to sue me and the city. He was still in jail, but he managed to hire one of the toughest litigators in L.A.
    I withdrew the book, but I got fired anyway.
    And that was it. Six months later, I was living on Nantucket.
    Franny and I committed no crimes of passion in those days, though we both wanted to. When I kissed her cheek at LAX I suspected I’d never see her again.
    But here she was.
    â€œI want to look at Delavane’s e-mails,” she said to me now. We were standing by the car again, stealing another moment before we had to go inside. It wasn’t the moment I would have liked.
    â€œYou’re going to need more than the fact that someone bought a voice machine with his stolen credit card.”
    She pulled her fingers through her