While Braun, Baldwin, and Capt. Andy Hissim had worked on Charles Cullen in Somerset, another team had approached his home in Bethlehem. SCPO detectives Lou DeMeo, Andrew Lippitt, Edward Percell, and Douglas Brownlie, accompanied by SCPO assistant prosecutor Tim Van Hise, Deputy Chief Norman Cullen, and Lt. Stuart Buckman, had been joined by Detective Delmar Wills, a liaison from the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office. They served a warrant on Charlie’s girlfriend, Catherine Westerfer, at her front door, then spent three hours combing through Cullen’s house and car, searching chiefly for controlled substances Charles Cullen might have stolen from the hospital.
The search had come up with one blister pack of pills, one bottle of CVS allergy medication, and one bottle of ibuprofen. Each was emptied and the capsules and tablets counted, photographed, and bagged for storage in the Northampton DA’s evidence facility. Analysis of these drugs would turn up nothing stronger than cold medicine.1
Braun and Baldwin rode the interstate home from Cullen’s house in uncomfortable silence. Danny Baldwin was more than aware that as lead detective on this case, the fallout from what they’d just done would fall on his head first. It was Danny who had gone to Assistant Prosecutor Tim Van Hise, asking the man to trust him as he vouched for probable cause on the search warrant, working with him for hours to get the legal language just so. It had been a risky move, and before Van Hise had headed over with him to the judge’s quarters he’d said, “Baldwin, this is your ass on the line—you sure about this?” Danny had said yes, absolutely. Now he wasn’t so certain. He knew better than to bother trying to talk it through just yet, not in the car. Frustration radiated from his partner like heat off an animal.
They’d gone at Cullen for six hours, throwing everything they had at him. Charlie had been perfectly willing to go through his personal history. He showed no surprise that the detectives knew about the allegations at Saint Barnabas, Saint Luke’s, and Warren hospitals. Charlie didn’t deny the allegations. He only said he’d never been charged, and the hospitals had cleared him. After that, he didn’t see any reason to say anything else. So the detectives tried to overwhelm him with their knowledge of his secret methods for getting digoxin.
They told him they had his Pyxis records. They had seen his requests and cancels for dig on June 15 and 27. In fact, as Danny had first noticed, Cullen was canceling orders all the time on Pyxis. What did Charlie think about that? Could he explain it? He said he couldn’t. He didn’t have to.
“Maybe I hit the wrong button,” Charlie told them. Then later, he offered, “Maybe I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”
That didn’t make sense, and the detectives told him so. If he’d made a mistake, and hit the wrong button, why didn’t he follow up by hitting the correct one? Charlie didn’t know. They asked him again, and he just shrugged, then stared at the floor. He knew he wasn’t under arrest. He was going to walk. Braun wanted to stop the guy, physically if he could, just put him down before he killed again. But there’s only so much you can push a guy when he knows he can walk away any time he wants.
Finally, their pushing hit a dead end. The detectives kept asking him questions, and Cullen kept repeating the same answer over and over, how he “couldn’t talk about that.” That word, couldn’t. It wasn’t a denial, but it wasn’t a confession, either. So the detectives pushed harder.
About six hours of this and Charlie was in tears. The prosecutor had told them finally, shut it down. And now here they were, worse off than when they’d started. On the ride back, that was the first thing Danny actually said out loud. It was blown. And it was picking the guy up without enough evidence for the arrest that had blown it. The guy was spooked now. He knew he was being watched, knew he was being investigated.
“You know the next call we’re gonna get,” Danny said finally.
Tim figured Cullen would have that lawyer by morning and that would be it, game over. They’d rolled the dice on getting a confession. But their chances of ever getting anything out of Cullen now were about zero.
Charlie waited until Cathy was gone for work before calling Amy. He had so many things to tell her, the week had been exciting, big-time crazy. He could hardly wait to tell her. So when he got Amy’s machine, Charlie told it instead.
“Thursday—a big, big-big-big commotion!” Charlie said breathlessly. “Taken down for questioning, and Cathy was taken, um, was questioned for a couple hours and—for five hours. Big big ordeal, um, and, I guess, the whole thing at, ah, Somerset is probably getting a little bit… bigger. Um, but yeah, uh, well, um, Friday’s possible. I didn’t even think I was going to get to go home on Thursday,” Charlie continued, “but, uh, so far nothing new that… anyway,” he said. “Uh, I talk too much!”
Charlie hung up before he realized that in his excitement, he’d forgotten to tell Amy the other big news. She’d been right—those new job-search websites really did work. Charlie was going to be a nurse again.