Beyond Obsession by Richard; Hammer Read Free Book Online Page B

that contained a notation about payments for American Express life insurance. Sands and Zaccaro took all those papers, sat on the bed and began to go through them. “Up to that moment,” Sands said, “we thought that what with the debts there wouldn’t be much of an estate.” Now they discovered that there was indeed an estate, and it was not small. There was a group insurance policy on Joyce’s life taken out by Athena and valued at about $50,000 and the American Express life insurance worth another $55,000, and both were increased by indemnity clauses in case of accidental death. Perhaps most important of all, among the papers they found a credit life insurance policy that paid off the mortgage on the condo, leaving the title free and clear. Mike Zaccaro did some figuring. Joyce Aparo’s estate, he estimated, was worth between $350,000 and $375,000, and even after deduction of the outstanding debts, which came to about $46,000, Karin, as the main beneficiary under the will would net something over $300,000. Sands and Zaccaro explained all this to Karin. “She seemed quite happy about it,” Sands says.
    At some point during all this paper work Karin walked out of her mother’s bedroom and into her own room. The doorbell rang. Sands went to answer it. Revoir and Beth Libby, a female officer, were outside. He let them in, and they all went into the living room. Karin came out of her room. In one hand she was holding two pieces of paper, folded twice. Revoir, who had not seen Karin before, asked her to take a tour of the apartment with him. They wandered about. Karin looked around. She said that her mother’s purse and wallet, with some cash and credit cards, were missing. In her own room she pointed to a pair of sunglasses on her desk and told Revoir she had never seen them before. Revoir put them in an evidence bag. She opened the drawer in her bedside table, Revoir standing by her. In the drawer were three diaries. “I asked him if he wanted them,” Karin says, “and he said no, he had already read them and he had no interest in them.”
    Back in the living room, Karin sat on the sofa, the folded papers still visible in her hand. Revoir sat on the sofa near her. Zaccaro and Butler sat nearby. Sands was in a chair directly across from her. Over the next hour or so Revoir and Libby questioned Karin about her mother’s background. “I was just kind of listening,” Sands says, “and I thought, Gee, they asked that question a couple of minutes ago . Karin hadn’t caught on to that, and the answers she was giving weren’t quite the same answers she gave the last time. Close, but not quite. All of a sudden, I’m thinking, Aha, this is an interrogation . Why would you ask the same question three different ways unless you wanted to see if there’s some kind of inconsistency in the answer? So I said to the officer, ‘Wait a second here. Look, is this any kind of interrogation? I want you to tell me right now, is Karin is a suspect?’
    â€œHe said, ‘Well, no, she’s not.’
    â€œI said, ‘Fine. To the extent that your questions have to do with mundane matters like who had the key, who gave it to whom, things like that, I’ll let it go on. But I want to tell you, I’m not a criminal attorney, but if this thing gets out of hand, it’s going to stop there.’ It pretty much stopped then.”
    But Sands had noticed something that everyone else was overlooking. The papers in Karin’s hand. Revoir asked no questions about them, did not seem to be aware of them. Sands watched and waited. About halfway through the interview Revoir and Libby took a break, got up and walked out of the room. Karin unfolded the papers and read them. She refolded them, crumpled them in her hand, paused, got up, walked over to an open green Hefty garbage bag and threw them inside. Revoir and Libby were just returning to the room.