Killing Kirshner (A Psychological Suspense Thriller) (12 page)

Pitman watched as Shazhad scribbled Petty’s last words and jumped up to sign the roster. Pitman knew that his new partner was not focused on finding Professor Kirshner. He knew if Kirshner was to be found, he would probably have to do it alone, which was fine with Pitman. He was used to working alone.

C
hapter 55

Todd Garner sat in his dorm room reading over some materials for his next Torts class. He flipped on his desk lamp so he could see a little better. Suddenly, he was startled by a heavy pounding on his door. He looked through the peep hole, but could not tell who it was knocking at his door.

“Open up, Garner. I know you’re in there,” the voice shouted.

Todd did not recognize the voice, but he decided to open the door to see who was interrupting his studying.

To his surprise, it was Abrams. “What the hell do you want?” Todd mumbled.

“What the hell did you tell those detectives, Garner?” an irate Abrams shouted.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Todd responded, pretending not to know what Abrams was referring to.

“You told them something, Todd. Now, what was it?” Abrams shouted as he moved closer to Todd.

“Get the hell out of my face. Who do you think you are? You can’t come to my place and scream and yell at me,” Todd shouted back.

“We all know it was you. It was right after you that they started questioning all of us.”

“They questioned me, too. I got nothing to hide. Do you, Abrams? Do you have something to hide?” Todd yelled.

Abrams grabbed Todd by his shirt and threw him up against the door. “You better shut your fucking mouth, and stop saying shit about me and my friends.”

“Get your hands off of me. I bet you killed Professor Kirshner. You and your fucked up friends. I know it was you guys. You and that bitch,” Todd shouted.

Abrams pulled back his fist and smashed it into the door. “Next time it’s going to be your face.”

“Just try it. I’m calling the police on your ass,” Todd shouted as Abrams walked down the hallway.

C
hapter 56

Shazhad and Pitman arrived at Kirshner’s house early the next morning. Even though Pitman had already made a trip to the luxurious home, Shazhad wanted to learn a little more about the missing professor.

Shazhad was impressed with Kirshner’s house; he obviously invested a lot of money into the home. He had read on-line about Kirshner’s history of defending the worst of the worst – murderers, rapists, child molesters. It appeared that Kirshner had no moral compass – at least, with what clients he chose to defend. As a criminal lawyer, Kirshner was considered to be one of the best during his heyday. Shazhad imagined that Kirshner had a lot of enemies out in the world. “You can’t represent those types of people and not make a lot of enemies – surviving victims, family members of the victims – they had to be numerous,” Shazhad thought. After all, Kirshner had been practicing for more than twenty years when he finally decided to teach.

Shazhad and Pitman walked through the house slowly, looking for any signs of a struggle, but there was nothing. Pitman showed Shazhad where he found the small piece of cloth with the blood on it. As they were about to leave, Shazhad looked back at the family room where Kirshner had his couch; something looked out of place to him.

“Hey, take a look over there. Does anything look strange to you?” Shazhad asked.

“What, you mean the couch? Not really,” Pitman responded.

“Where’s the coffee table? There’s nothing there. It is completely bare in front of that couch. No end tables, no coffee tables – seems odd.” Shazhad began to walk over toward the couch.

“It does seem strange. Where did he put his beer when he watched football games?” Pitman asked.

“Exactly; something is missing.” Shazhad walked over to the other side of the couch. “Give me a hand, let’s move this.”

Pitman and Shazhad lifted the couch and moved it a few feet forward. It was amazingly clean underneath the couch, like the rest of the house. Kirshner was obviously obsessed with keeping a very clean house. Pitman turned on a light in the corner of the room. There was a glistening in the grout of the tile. Pitman bent over and picked up a tiny piece of glass, and Shazhad found another tiny piece of glass a few inches away.

“I’m thinking a glass coffee table,” Shazhad said.

“A glass table shattered into a million pieces. Someone did their best to clean it up, but you know how hard glass is to clean up. I think our professor might really be in trouble,” Pitman sighed.

C
hapter 57

Pitman grabbed his radio and called for a crime scene investigator to inspect Kirshner’s house. Shazhad went out to their car and called one of the duty officers. He asked the officer to check if Kirshner had made any recent reports of any intruders or stalkers.

Within a few minutes, the duty officer told Shazhad that Kirshner did not report any intruders or stalkers. However, a few weeks ago, his neighbor reported seeing an older man with a gun in his hand chasing a bunch of people down the street. The neighbor said there were five of them – one of which was a woman.

Shazhad walked back into the house, as Pitman was looking through the kitchen. “You’re not going to believe this. A few weeks before Kirshner went missing, his neighbor reported that someone carrying a gun was chasing a group of people down the street. Five of them – one was a girl. Sound familiar?”

“Sounds like our five favorite law students. Let’s bring them all in for questioning – they’re hiding something. I can feel it. Let’s also check and see if Kirshner had a gun registered to him. But, before we leave, let’s go talk to this neighbor,” Pitman said.

“When’s the crime unit getting here?”

“Probably not until later today. I have a feeling this is not going to turn out pretty for our professor.”

“I think you’re right.”

C
hapter 58

Amanda sat on the edge of her bed gazing at the blank wall. She thought about the father that she barely remembered, taken from her when she was so young. Luckily, her mother was an extremely strong woman – enough woman to be a mother and a father to Amanda.

A tear rolled down her left cheek, as she sat in silence. She nearly fell off the bed as the phone rang out, rattling the terrible headache she had developed a few days earlier.

“Hello,” she mumbled.

“Ms. Martin, this is Detective Ahmed of the Miami/Dade police. We are going to need you to come down to the station.”

“I don’t understand. What is this all about?” She asked.

“Professor Kirshner. We need to ask you some further questions regarding his whereabouts,” Shazhad responded.

“But, I don’t know anything. I was just in his class, that’s all.” She was panicked.

“Ms. Martin, I need you to come down here within the hour. I can come and get you if that is necessary,” Shazhad warned.

“No, I’m on my way,” she muttered as she hung up the phone.

There was a loud bang on her door.

She ran to the door and looked through the peephole; it was Will. She threw the door open and collapsed in his arms. “Thank God it’s you,” she mumbled, looking into his eyes.

“I guess you just got a call, too.”

“What are we going to do, Will?”

“It’ll be fine. We just have to stick together. We need to call the others and see if they called them, too,” Will suggested.

He pulled out his cell phone and quickly dialed Jack, who did not answer his phone. Sean’s phone just rang, and Abrams’ phone went straight to voicemail. It was just the two of them versus the entire Miami/Dade police department.

C
hapter 59

Abrams sat in an interrogation room at the Miami/Dade police station. The police had picked him up at his home right in front of his wife. Abrams knew that it was very unusual to bring someone down to the police station over a simple verbal threat. He knew that this was not just about Todd; it was about Kirshner.

This was confirmed when the interrogation room door opened and Detective Pitman walked in. “Mr. Freeman, it’s nice to see you again.” Pitman sat down across from Abrams.

“So, why did you threaten Todd Garner?” Pitman asked.

“I didn’t threaten him. We got into an argument and I lost my temper. That’s all there was to it.”

“He has a different version. He says you attacked him because of what he told us. Do you know what he told us, Mr. Freeman?” Pitman asked.

“No, not exactly, but I am sure it was bullshit.”

“He told us that he overheard you and your friends talking about how you would like to kill Professor Kirshner.”

“Big deal! We all hated him – that’s no secret. Everyone in that class hates him. So, we joked around about what it would be like to kill him. There’s a big difference between that and actually killing another human being, which I can assure you that we did not do,” Abrams argued.

“I agree, it’s not unusual for students to imagine what it would be like to off their most hated professor. But, I’m afraid it does not end there, Mr. Freeman. Kirshner’s neighbor reported seeing five intruders running from Kirshner’s home – he was apparently chasing after them. What was most interesting was that one was a woman. Just like your little study group – four men and a woman.”

“You think we broke into Professor Kirshner’s house. Why would we do that? I didn’t even want to see the guy in class, much less at his home,” Abrams quickly responded.

“I’m going to ask you this question one time, and one time only. Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Kirshner?”

“No, I did not,” Abrams answered.

C
hapter 60

Will and Amanda arrived at the police station together, bumping into Abrams as he was leaving. Detective Pitman was walking closely behind him. Will thought it was good that Abrams was leaving the station instead of being a guest in its jail cell. “Mr. James and Ms. Martin, have a seat in the lounge and we will be right with you,” Pitman announced as he walked Abrams outside the station.

Will and Amanda held hands as they sat waiting for Detective Pitman to return. Amanda was trembling. She could not stop shaking. Will held her hand tightly and stroked her leg with his other hand trying to calm her down.

As Pitman was about to talk to them, Shazhad came walking up to him with a file in his hand. Pitman read what was in the file, and instantly glanced at Amanda and Will.

“How’d you get this?” Pitman asked.

“I got lucky. I was just trying to look up some of his past clients he had gotten off, and I came across this,” Shazhad whispered.

Pitman motioned for Will to come with him, and Shazhad took Amanda to a different interrogation room. “Ms. Martin, have a seat. The reason Detective Pitman and I brought you back in today is because we think you might know something about Professor Kirshner’s disappearance. So, I have a few questions that I need you to answer for me.”

“Okay, but I don’t know any more than what I told you last time,” Amanda said in a shaky voice.

“That’s fine. Have you ever been to Professor Kirshner’s house?”

“No. Why would I?” Amanda responded.

“So, he did not chase you and your four friends down the street?”

“No, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Ms. Martin, do you know you are shaking? People that tell the truth don’t nervously shake.”

“I’m shaking because I am in a police interrogation room being asked questions that I don’t have any answers for. I really don’t need any added stress in my life. I just want to go home.” Amanda raised her voice slightly.

“Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Professor Kirshner?”

“No, I have no idea where he is or what happened to him. I don’t know, detective,” she said as she stood up to leave.

“One more question before you go, Ms. Martin.”

“What?” she angrily shouted.

“How did your father die?”

“My father? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Your father’s name was Alex Martin. He was born in South Carolina in 1961. He died a horrible death in 1985 in Charleston, South Carolina. The man accused of murdering your father was Jacob Little,” Shazhad recited.

“Yeah, that’s all true. But, he never got any jail time for what he did. The jury found him not guilty,” she sobbed.

“I know. I read some of the newspaper articles. At the time, it was a very controversial and well-publicized trial.”

“I was really young; I don’t remember much.”

“Ms. Martin, do you know who happened to be Jacob Little’s attorney?”

“Like I said, I was only a child. I have no idea,” she quickly responded.

“You were never curious to read about your father’s trial and how the man that allegedly killed him got off? I find that hard to believe, especially considering you’re now in law school.”

“I don’t know, detective, and I really don’t like the fact that you are talking about my father.”

“Okay, I’ll play the game. The attorney that represented Jacob Little was Isaiah Kirshner, your Criminal Law professor.”

A few moments of silence went by before Amanda spoke. “But I didn’t know. How can that be?”

“Here it is in black and white.” Shazhad handed her some newspaper articles.

“How could you think I would sit in that man’s class? Take his abuse, after what he did to my family? I would have never been able to look at him,” she cried.

“So, you’re still saying you did not know Kirshner was the attorney that got your father’s killer off?”

“I didn’t know, detective. And now I want to go home. Please don’t bother me again,” she said as she walked out the room.

Shazhad remained sitting in the chair and let her walk out of the room. He now had an even stronger motive, but he still had no body. But he felt something deep down in his gut. Amanda Martin knew something about Kirshner’s disappearance and so did her study partners – he was sure of it.

Chapter 61

Will sat in the interrogation room. He was not afraid of Detective Pitman; he actually looked a lot like his deceased grandfather. In some strange way, this comforted him.