04.Die.My.Love.2007 (23 page)

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“Piper, how are you?” Doug asked.

Piper mumbled something Doug didn’t catch.

Just then, Tina sat up and reached down to tenderly hug her. “I just love my little sister,” she said.

11

Captain Stem often marveled at the advances science had brought to modern criminal investigations, from DNA to microscopic fiber analysis. It was such technology that yielded an important break on day one of the Jablin murder investigation: the trail Piper Rountree’s cell phone left as it traveled through Richmond. That knowledge had led the police to the specific Southwest Airlines fl ights a woman using the name Tina Rountree had taken from Norfolk to Baltimore then Houston. Then police suffered their first setback, when the Houston P.D. was unable to intercept the woman at the airport.

On day two of the investigation, while they’d continue to use everything modern technology had to offer, Stem knew it was time to rely more heavily on a traditional police tool—old-fashioned gumshoeing, hitting the pavement to track down witnesses and collect evidence. In Richmond, he assigned Investigator Chuck Hanna to follow leads, while Coby Kelley and his partner, Robin Dorton, were on an airplane headed to Houston to pick up Piper Rountree’s trail.

It was that need to gumshoe the case that brought Hanna to his desk in the low-slung, brown brick building that comprised Henrico P.D. headquarters at nine that Sunday morning, Halloween day. Once there, he made copies of the photo of Piper Rountree confiscated from Paxton’s bedroom, the one of Piper in a red dress. He then got in his unmarked car DIE, MY LOVE / 175

and returned to the area around Cox Road and Broad Street, where Sprint rec ords showed Piper’s cell phone had been used two hours before the murder. His assignment: to fi nd what Wade Kizer said was essential to the case—a witness who could place not only Rountree’s telephone but the woman herself in Richmond on the day of the murder.

Yet two hours later, after questioning employees in most of the restaurants in the area around the Cox Road tower, showing them Rountree’s photo, Hanna had come up empty.

“No, haven’t seen her,” he heard over and over again.

That left the hotels.

As his first piece of business, Hanna returned to the Homestead Suites, where he’d learned the previous eve ning that Tina Rountree had an unused reservation. Again he talked to the desk clerk and all the personnel on duty, showing them Rountree’s photo. Again no one remembered the woman in the red dress. Disappointed, Hanna asked the desk clerk to double-check the rec ords by printing a complete copy of the hotel register for the nights of October 28

and 29, the two nights the Southwest Airline tickets suggested Rountree was in Richmond. To Hanna’s disappointment, he still didn’t find the name Rountree on the list.

With that, he left, vowing to keep trying until he’d inquired at every hotel in that part of the city.

Meanwhile, in Houston, Charles Tooke had been trying to reach Piper since Thursday. He needed paperwork from her, something for work. He’d called repeatedly, but she hadn’t answered her cell phone all day Thursday. On Friday, Charles finally reached Mac, who told him that Piper had said she’d be in Fort Worth on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, attending a law conference. So at 9:39 Sunday morning, Charles tried again, dialing Piper’s cell phone, the 7878 number he’d always used to reach her in the past. This time, Piper answered.

176 / Kathryn Casey

“Fred is dead,” she blurted out.

The conversation was short that morning. Piper, who sounded sad and tired, never explained to Charles how Fred died, just that he’d been “killed.” With no reason to assume otherwise, Charles pictured a car accident, not a murder.

Concerned about a woman he’d grown to view as not only a coworker but a friend, he offered to help if he could, but Piper said there was nothing he could do. After they hung up, he dialed Tina’s phone number, wanting to make sure she knew.

“Yes, I know,” Tina said, sounding not the least upset.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But Richmond is a very violent town.”

That same Sunday morning, Breck McDaniel and his partner, David Ferguson, were busy as well. At Hobby Airport, Ferguson waited for Coby Kelley and Robin Dorton’s plane to arrive. After Ferguson picked them up, he was to drive them directly to rendezvous with McDaniel, who had Piper’s Kingwood house staked out. Just after the fl ight landed, McDaniel called Ferguson to tell him that Piper Rountree had just driven into her garage in her black Jeep Liberty, license X54-JAJ. She’d closed the garage door and presum-ably gone inside.

“What does Kelley want me to do?” McDaniel asked.

“Hang tight until we get there,” Ferguson answered, passing on a message from Kelley. “We’re on our way.”

Half an hour later a Houston officer McDaniel had made arrangements to have on-site as backup relieved him of his position watching the house, and McDaniel drove to the end of the block, where he met with Kelley, Dorton, and Ferguson.

“Time to knock on her door,” Kelley said with a smile.

This time when Ferguson and McDaniel drove up in their DIE, MY LOVE / 177

unmarked cars, they didn’t park down the street but pulled up directly in front of Piper’s house. All four offi cers walked to the front door, and Kelly pounded solidly. No answer. He rang the bell. Again no answer.

Making sure she hadn’t left, Ferguson walked around to the garage and peeked in the window. As he expected, Piper’s SUV was inside. He returned to the front door and the officers rang the bell and knocked again. Still no answer.

They knocked harder, but without a response. Pulling out his cell, Coby dialed Piper’s house phone. Within seconds they heard the phone ringing inside the house, but no one picked up. When the voice mail came on, Coby left a message: “Ms. Rountree, this is Investigator Coby Kelley from Henrico County. I’m outside your door with other offi cers and we’d like to talk with you. Please come to the door.” He hung up and they waited, but the door never opened.

Through the windows, all four officers saw what appeared to be an orderly home. More than one noted a computer tower in the living room underneath a desk, clearly visible from the front door. Breck made a note in his pad: “Desktop computer, living room.” That was something they’d list when they sat down to write up a request for a search warrant.

Even after Breck McDaniel walked around the house and banged on a small bathroom window in the back, no one came to the door to let them in.

“What do you want to do?” Breck asked Kelley. “Should we try to get a search warrant now?”

On his cell phone, Coby called Sergeant Russell in Richmond. When he hung up, Kelley said, “They don’t want to do that yet. Let’s leave Ferguson here to watch for her. The rest of us can try to hook up with Tina. I’d like to talk to her before the women are able to compare notes on what we’re asking.”

With that, Dorton, Kelley, and McDaniel left to drive back 178 / Kathryn Casey

into Houston, hoping to track down Tina Rountree, while Ferguson settled in, watching Piper’s house. After the others had left, Ferguson took out his notepad and wrote down what they’d done so far. Such notes could become important evidence to put before a jury, documenting a suspect’s odd behavior—such as refusing to answer a door when police were trying to talk with them.

It was then that Ferguson saw the black Jeep Liberty suddenly back out of the garage and down the driveway. Inside the SUV he saw a woman resembling Piper Rountree, who hit the gas peddle, the Jeep skidding off down the street.

Quickly, Ferguson started his car and pulled out, falling in behind her.

“She’s on the move,” Ferguson said to Breck on the telephone.

“We’re on our way,” Breck answered.

Taking the next exit off the freeway, McDaniel swung the car into a quick U-turn and headed back toward Kingwood.

Minutes later Ferguson called his partner again, giving them his location: “Looks like she’s pulling into a strip center parking lot.”

“Tell her we’re here from Virginia and we want to talk with her,” Kelley told Ferguson. “Try to keep her talking until we get there.”

In the parking lot, the Jeep swung into a space in front of a PetSmart store. Hurriedly, Ferguson pulled in beside her, parked and jumped out. “Ms. Rountree,” he called as Piper, dressed in cutoffs and a T-shirt, bustled toward the pet store.

“I’m Sergeant David Ferguson, and I need to talk with you,”

he said, flipping open his badge for her to see. As instructed, he then launched into the explanation: Kelley and Dorton were in Houston from Henrico and needed to meet with her, and would she mind just waiting a few minutes while they drove to the parking lot. Or could they make other arrangements, something a bit more comfortable?

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“They need to work out getting your kids to you,” Ferguson said, dangling the bait. “Can we go back and talk at your house?”

Given the option, Ferguson wanted Piper in her house, so he and the other officers had the opportunity to convince her to sign a consent-to- search form. That would make things easier, since they’d no longer need to ask a judge to sign a search warrant.

Yet, it appeared Piper had other things on her mind.

“No, if you want to talk, we can talk here. But first I need to run an errand,” she said. “I have to get crickets to feed my frogs.”

Amazed that she didn’t seem the least bit worried about her children or concerned about what he had to tell her, just a day after her ex-husband’s murder, Ferguson pressed, “So, after you buy the crickets, you’ll have time to talk to us?

Maybe we can head back to your house there, talk where we can have a little privacy?”

“I’ll be right back,” Piper said, leaving him standing in the parking lot as she walked into the pet store.

After Piper disappeared inside, Ferguson called McDaniel to fill him in. The elation of finally cornering her, however, evaporated just minutes later when she emerged from the store and hurried past him, back toward her SUV, not even looking at him.

“The Virginia officers are on their way, and I can have them meet us at your house to talk,” Ferguson said again, smiling.

“No,” Piper said. “The Virginia police haven’t even contacted me. If they want to talk, tell them to call me.”

Ferguson knew that wasn’t true but didn’t argue the point. “Ms. Rountree, let’s talk about this,” he said, but Piper swung open the door to her Jeep. She slammed the door, quickly turned on the engine, threw it into reverse and backed up, then revved forward out of the parking lot. By 180 / Kathryn Casey

then Ferguson had jumped in his own car, and he followed her into traffi c.

“She’s on the move,” he told the others via phone. “Looks like she’s headed into Houston.”

McDaniel, who’d driven halfway back to Kingwood, pulled off of Interstate 59 again and made another U-turn.

This time he sat and waited. When Ferguson called in a position two exits north of where he’d parked, McDaniel, with Kelley and Dorton in the car, pulled back onto the interstate and headed slowly south, toward downtown. When McDaniel saw Piper’s Jeep followed by his partner’s unmarked car, he pulled alongside them. Ferguson opened up enough room to allow McDaniel to cut in front of him, and they formed a three-car caravan, with Ferguson’s as the third car. McDaniel knew that with all the jockeying for position they’d been too obvious for her to ignore, that Piper must have known she was being followed by two police cars. But she didn’t pull over. Instead, she drove through Houston, past the city’s forest of mirrored skyscrapers, their top floors obscured by low clouds, and kept going. At first it appeared she was heading to Tina’s house or the clinic, but instead she pulled up and parked in front of a red brick duplex. Out front was a sign that read: attorneys, martin mcvey. Still visible was the name Piper Rountree, under a coat of silver paint McVey had applied after he’d ordered her to move out.

As Piper stepped from her Jeep, Kelley was only a stride behind.

“Ms. Rountree, I’m Investigator Coby Kelley from Henrico,” he called out to her as he followed her toward McVey’s front porch. “I talked with you last night, and I’d like to talk to you again. We have a few questions, and we need to discuss the situation with your children.”

Piper turned, looked at him and said, “Come in.”

Inside McVey’s homey fi rst-fl oor offi ce, Kelley entered a blue-walled reception area with book-lined shelves and DIE, MY LOVE / 181

burgundy leather furniture. Off to the right, in a side room, Kelley saw a blond, attractive woman, Tina Rountree, sitting across the desk from a large man with white hair and a beard, Marty McVey.

When she noticed Coby, Tina smiled and asked, “Who’s that handsome devil coming in the door?”

Smiling, Kelley introduced himself, but Tina’s demeanor immediately flipped a full 180 degrees. Suddenly crying, she ran from the room, toward the back of the house. Not forgetting who he’d followed in the door, Kelley turned his attention on Piper.

At fi rst they talked while Piper paced about the room, at times sobbing. “I know you’re really concerned about your kids. I want you to know that they’re okay,” Kelley assured her. “They’re fine. They’re with friends.”

Before he’d left Virginia, Kelley had called Offi cer Boyd, the neighbor who’d taken the Jablin children in. Kelley had explained that Piper was “all about her children,” that she kept asking where they were and wanting to see them, to claim them now that their father was dead. When he got to Houston, Kelley wanted to be able to put Piper on the telephone with her children, to assure her that they were safe and get rid of that objection. Boyd had agreed to put the call through. Now, Kelley launched his plan into action.

“I know you want to talk to your kids, so let’s get them on the telephone right now,” he said to Piper, dialing the Boyds’

house. The timing, however, didn’t work. Michael and Elizabeth Jablin had arrived, and she had taken all three children to a neighborhood Halloween barbecue and hay ride at the cul de sac down the street from their home, still ringed in crime scene tape. The children had planned to go with Fred that day, and asked to see their friends. Later, Mel would remember her daughter Chelsea and Jocelyn sitting and painting the other children’s faces, Jocelyn looking dazed.