I was excited to start my workday that Thursday morning. After breakfast, I wished everyone a good day and headed out with the list of questions in my sport jacket pocket. I gave Marie a head-tip toward the door, which I was sure she understood to mean “lock it,” then I left.
I got to the station, and once our morning briefing was over, I would call the hospital, speak to the doctor watching our unnamed woman, and get her status. If everything was a go, Rue and I would head out to interview her.
Our night shift passed on that the tip-line calls had kept them busy for the first few hours after the US Nightly News broadcast but had died down by two a.m. Callers from Wyoming, Iowa, and Kentucky had described the man as being unusually tall, and we would dig deeper with those callers during our shift. Hopefully, we’d finally get the man’s name if any of those callers were reputable. Surprisingly, none of the callers from the Birmingham, Alabama, viewing area gave accurate descriptions of the killer. That told me it was unlikely he was from that area and had been in Birmingham only to rent the sedan.
With the briefing over, I raced to my office and dialed the hospital. I asked to speak to Dr. Kaplan since he was the one who was monitoring the Jane Doe we’d brought in yesterday while she was high on heroin. It took a minute to get him on the phone, but when we spoke, he said she was agitated but coherent. He also told us her name was Nancy Davis.
That was a good sign. I thanked him and said we’d be there within the hour. After hanging up, I called Royce and told him we were leaving.
“Make sure you record her statement and compare it to what she told Petrie.”
“Will do.”
Rue and I left. The fifteen-minute drive to Mercy Hospital couldn’t go fast enough. I couldn’t wait to hear if Nancy Davis’s recollection was the same as what she’d said yesterday.
We headed straight for the reception counter, showed our badges, and asked what room Nancy Davis was in. They had moved her down to the first floor in observation cubicle number three, and with the doctor’s okay, she would be released after our interview.
We were instructed to go down the left hallway and take the first right to the observation area. Those people had been discharged from the inpatient floors and were waiting for a doctor to release them.
We approached cubicle three, and I called Nancy’s name through the closed curtain.
She responded with a simple “Yes?”
I moved the curtain aside and saw the same disheveled-looking woman as yesterday except her eyes appeared more alert. Like the doctor had warned us, she acted fidgety and seemed agitated. I assumed she was a daily heroin user and that her behavior meant she hadn’t had her fix that day.
“Nancy, we’re Detectives Cannon and Rue. We met you yesterday, but you may not remember that.”
“Was it you that stuck me in here? And if you did, why? I need to leave right now, so I’d appreciate it if you’d tell the doctor to get his ass moving.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Heroin is illegal in Georgia, and the consequences for possessing it are severe. Unless you want to go to prison, you’ll sit still, be helpful, and answer the questions we have for you.”
“Questions about what?”
“About the man you saw go to Brandon Ellis’s door yesterday.”
“I don’t know anyone’s name.”
“Brandon lived three houses down and across the street from the place you were squatting in. One of our officers spoke to you yesterday. At first, you said you hadn’t seen anyone, and then later you told him something else.”
She shrugged.
“Shrugging doesn’t get you off the hook. You’re coherent now, and we need to hear your statement again. Or we can arrest you right now if you don’t cooperate.”
“Okay, okay. No need to act snotty! What do you want to know?”
I wasn’t about to repeat what she’d said to Petrie. We needed to hear the same story she’d told him yesterday.
“We want to know who and what you saw happen yesterday, and I’m going to record it.”
“Fine.” She waited about thirty seconds, likely to recall what she actually remembered. With a theatrically loud sigh, she began. “There were police and people everywhere. It kind of freaked me out, you know.”
“I suppose if you were already high, it might. Go on,” I said.
“Anyway, I told that cop I hadn’t seen anything. I just wanted him to go away so people wouldn’t look at me.”
“Meaning you did see something or someone?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“What did you see?”
“A really tall man with black hair climbed out of a green truck.”
“And what did he do?” Rue asked.
“He crossed the street and knocked on the door of that shithole house.”
I chuckled. “You may not have noticed in your inebriated state, but almost all of them are shitholes. Which shithole in particular?”
“The one where all of the cops were.”
“Okay. The tall man went to the door, knocked, then what happened?”
“The guy who lives there opened the door. What do you think?”
“And?”
“And they talked for a minute, then the tall guy went inside.”
I glanced at Rue. “Did it look like he forced his way in? Like there was a scuffle?”
“No. He just walked in.”
“How long was he there?”
She began to shrug but caught herself. “Um, like ten minutes or less.”
Rue took over again. “Did you hear any yelling?”
“No.”
“And you saw him leave and drive away?”
“Yep.”
“Can you describe the truck?”
“It was clean, newer-looking, and a medium-green color. That’s all I remember.”
Unless she could give us the plate number, which I doubted, there wasn’t anything else to ask.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t remember this until right now.”
My brows shot up. What she had already said was pretty close to Petrie’s account. “There’s more?”
“Yeah. I totally forgot to tell that cop yesterday the rest. I noticed when the tall guy left, he was hobbling along. That’s when I saw he was carrying his shoe.”
I grinned at Rue, excused myself for a minute, and stepped out into the hallway. I called the precinct and asked for an officer to come and pick up Nancy. Even though she’d cooperated, Schedule 1 drugs were illegal, and she was going to jail. Vice could take care of her and find out who her supplier was, but as an officer of the law, I didn’t have any other choice. I returned to the room, thanked her, and wrapped up the meeting.
At the nurses’ station, I let them know that Nancy needed to stay put until an officer arrived. She would be arrested for possessing a Schedule 1 drug and couldn’t be released just yet. They said they understood, and we left.