Fred Forchelli - Chapter 10

Chapter 10 – The Crime

Fred arrived at the office earlier than usual the next morning. He had a lot to get accomplished that day. He had already stopped at O’Brien’s Office Services on the second floor and gotten permission to have exclusive use of Jennifer for the day. He’d need her considerable skills to pull everything together.

With her help he dictated notes to be typed, made copies of the appropriate newspaper articles, pulled together the online research results that he had uncovered, and started organizing everything into a cohesive report. Around late morning when Fred felt that they’d be able to get it all done that day, he made a call to the local District Attorney and scheduled a meeting with he and others on his staff for early Monday morning. He was so focused on pulling everything together that it was only because Jennifer insisted that he stopped for lunch. He did so, but only allowed himself a half-hour so that he could get back to work.

Toward the end of the day Fred signed on to his Amazon account and ordered a couple of books. He was not willing to wait even for the promised one-day delivery, so he ordered the Kindle versions. He had some reading to do this weekend to help clear up some of the loose ends.

It was nearly four o’clock when he took the several copies of his report – each in a separate notebook – up to his office. He was tired from the whirlwind of activity that day – and so was Jennifer. He had thanked her profusely. While her contract with O’Brien’s did not allow her to accept tips, he made a mental note to have some flowers and a thank you card delivered to her on Monday.

 

On Monday morning, as promised, Fred met with the local District Attorney, Marvin Jones, and two of his staff. Sitting in Marvin’s spacious office, Fred passed out copies of the notebooks that he and Jennifer had prepared, and he began going through the chronology. They had not gotten far when Marvin, realizing what he had in front of him, asked Fred to pause for a few minutes. They moved into the conference room next door and Marvin asked most of the rest of his senior staff to drop what they were doing and join them. Fred did not have enough copies of his notebook, so they had to share.

Fred began over in his presentation – beginning with the drilling/fracking operation, then how Jeremy Spencer’s venture capital company invested and eventually took over and how Jeremy benefited and became quite rich because of that investment. Then he noted how George Jenson, upon the death of his mother, realized that he was now the sole heir of Jeremy’s estate, but that it was apt to be several decades before he would benefit, and he got greedy. Thus, it was that he contracted with Barnard Olshevski to arrange for Jeremy to meet an untimely death. The police report confirmed that Barnard had been there that night and the presence of the heart medication in his car was an indication of how the murder was committed. Fred suggested that the DA’s office would be able to get proof of payment from George to Barnard through requisition of bank records – something that Fred could not do.

Marvin was an experienced, no-nonsense type of person. He barked a few orders to those in the room and they quickly left to complete their assignments. He had initially taken Fred as just one of many such private investigators/attorneys, but the way that Fred had pulled everything together and the quality of his presentation made a very positive impression on him. Before Fred left, Marvin told him, “You have a lot of potential, we’ll be talking more in the future.”

Fred was on cloud nine. But he had one more important task to perform that day. Pulling out his trusty flip-phone and calling up a number he had saved that weekend, he dialed it. When the feminine voice answered, Fred said, “Betty? This is Fred. We need to meet.”

 

Later that week the news media was abuzz with the happenings. No one was terribly surprised when a group of six policemen entered one of the local bars in the big city and arrested “Bro” Olshevski. They all knew that he was a bad dude and he’d been arrested several times before. But when he was taken before the local magistrate the next morning and charged with the murder of Jeremy Spencer that was unexpected.

But it was the simultaneous arrest of George Jenson – and not in a bar, but in the Diversity Office of the University – that really got people’s attention. Their up-and-coming star, the winner of the Chamber of Commerce Futurist Award, was arrested on a charge of accessory to murder. Because he was viewed as an extreme flight risk, he was also denied bail.

Almost immediately Barnard and George turned on each other. They may have thought they were diverting attention from themselves, but, of course, they only succeeded in providing additional proof of how they were both guilty.

 

On Thursday evening, in a quiet recess in the back of a darkened restaurant, Fred met with his client – Elizabeth Olshevski. Her husband had been arrested earlier that day, but the news media had not yet connected his quiet arrest to that of George’s more spectacular one in another city.

Fred had determined that the only way that a photocopy of that police report would be in the packet of hints would be if the photocopy had been of the one that the police had given to Barnard when he had been warned on that fateful night around the corner from Jeremy Spencer’s house. And one of the few people who would have had access to that copy was Barnard’s wife – Elizabeth.

Fred had also done some further research into the Olshevski couple. While still legally married, Barnard and Elizabeth lived apart – she being a respected English professor and he a long-time criminal. But there was more to it than that. Barnard’s legal name was Barnard Rubble Olshevski. And Elizabeth, besides teaching, was also a prolific author. She published under the pseudonym of “Betty Rubble” – Betty being short for Elizabeth and Rubble being her husband’s middle name. She wrote mystery stories – some of which had been Fred’s reading material the previous weekend.

Elizabeth had a suspicion about her erstwhile husband’s involvement in Jeremy Spencer’s death. But she couldn’t go to the police herself – if Barnard had any suspicion that she was accusing him, her life might also be in danger. Thus, it was her familiarity with the plots in her mystery novels that had led her to become the anonymous client and to let someone else become the accuser. And the name connection between Barney and Betty Rubble and Fred Flintstone had just seemed too perfect – which is why she had chosen Fred to help her.

Elizabeth had been quite successful as an author and had a sizeable bank account from her book sales – which her husband had no knowledge of. While Fred felt that she had been more than generous in her initial anonymous payment to him, she was so grateful to be free of the fear of her husband that she promised that there would be an additional payment in the future.

 

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