Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [170]
That afternoon, Shapiro visited the store Coffman had mentioned, which was just a few blocks from the Access Graphics offices. Sifting through the boxes of white cord, he found some that matched what he’d seen in the autopsy photo. Shapiro asked the cashier if John or Patsy Ramsey had ever been in the store.
“Not that I can recall,” the clerk said.
That evening, Shapiro wrote a letter to Alex Hunter. He mentioned what he’d found and said that according to the clerk, the police had never visited the store to inquire about cord.
“People like you are going to make a difference,” Hunter told Shapiro on the phone after receiving his letter. “Other journalists come in to get information. You come in to give me information.” The comment gave Shapiro a huge boost.
Meanwhile, his editor was pushing him to develop a police source. Call Steve Thomas, Mullins said. Shapiro thought he was joking, since Mullins had blown Shapiro’s cover by calling Thomas earlier in the year.
Nevertheless, Shapiro called Thomas and left a message, saying he had information the cops might need. Surprisingly, Thomas called back.
“I still have a working file on you,” the detective said. “I look forward to seeing whatever it is you have to tell me.”
Shapiro dropped off a note for Thomas at police headquarters. In it, he mentioned the white cord he had found—and also that the movie Speed contained a line similar to one rumored to be in the ransom note: “Don’t try to grow a brain John.”
“Jeff, I’m not interested in your theories,” Thomas told Shapiro the next day on the phone. “I’m not going to give you any information in exchange. This relationship is going to be a monologue. That’s all it will ever be. You talk to us. I say nothing.”
“I just want to help,” Shapiro said.
That afternoon, he went to police headquarters to introduce himself to Thomas. Shapiro was impressed with Thomas’s appearance—he was in his mid-thirties and looked a bit like Clark Kent, in jeans and a T-shirt. On his way home, Shapiro stopped at the army-navy store again. He learned that after he’d delivered his letter to Thomas the previous day, the detective had visited the store and purchased all their white cord, forty-five pieces in all. Shapiro felt as if he’d accomplished something.
On May 19 I met with Steve Thomas. This time he was more professional-looking, in a white shirt and tie.
He took me into this little ice-cube room—nothing but a desk, a tape recorder, and couple of chairs on both sides. I put my $750 Zero Halliburton briefcase on the table.
“Does that need to be up here?” Thomas asked. “Would you mind if I opened it?” He searched my case, then said, “Mind if I pat you down and do a search?”
“No problem,” I answered.
“I trust you don’t have hidden wires on you that I don’t know about.”
“No.”
Then Thomas introduced me to his partner, Ron Gosage. Gosage didn’t say a word. You know—good cop, bad cop. Then Gosage turned on the tape recorder.
“Jeff, this is going to be a formal interview,” Thomas began.
They wanted to know how I’d noticed the line from Speed. I watch a lot of movies and have a good memory, I said. All the while Gosage just sat there with his arms folded.
I told them about the movie Rising Sun, and autoerotic asphyxiation—enhancing sexual pleasure by cutting off the oxygen supply. I’d been convinced for some time that the ligature had been used on JonBenét for that purpose. That interested them.
Finally they asked me about the tabloids. They wanted to know if I had sources in the DA’s office or the police department. I said I didn’t.
They smiled and thanked me for coming in. I could tell they were interested in me.
—Jeff Shapiro
9
By spring there was much talk in the press about the mistakes the police had made in the first hours of the case and even more speculation about who was to blame for them. Because of Chief Koby’s protracted silence