It Takes Two to Strangle (24 page)

The reminder of the day passed uneventfully. Damon popped into the branch library to see if he could catch Bethany who was a frequent library visitor. She wasn’t there and he chastised himself for looking. He hadn’t seen her since the Fourth of July picnic and was sure she was avoiding him.

Chapter 23

At seven-thirty the next evening Gerry called. “We did it, Damon!” he shouted into the telephone. “It’s over. We brought Toma in to the station and he came clean. We have more physical evidence, too. Come by and I’ll let you listen to the tape.” Damon pumped a fist in the air and told Gerry he’d be right over. He found a bottle of expensive champagne that had been collecting dust and sped over to the Sloman residence.

Trina greeted Damon with a peck on the cheek and led him into Gerry’s study. Brown wainscoting darkened the room. A small desk and two deep green fabric armchairs crowded the small space. Gerry shook Damon’s hand vigorously, then pulled him into a brief embrace.

“Congratulations, Gerry,” Damon said. “I knew your hard work would pay off.”

“Thanks to you, Damon.” He accepted the champagne and poured Damon a glass of wine from an open bottle. “Trina and I had a celebratory glass earlier,” he explained.

“You said he came clean. So Toma was the murderer after all?”

“Actually no. Listen to the tape and you can hear the same thing I did.”

Gerry walked over to a cassette player. Damon wondered when the police department would upgrade its technology.

“Toma didn’t resist arrest when the Newark police picked him up,” Gerry said. “He said he was on his way to visit a friend in Connecticut and just stopped in New Jersey to spend the night. It probably isn’t true, but it doesn’t matter.” His finger hovered over the play button. “I have it set up to start after we conducted all of the formalities. So what you’re hearing is Margaret Hobbes with Toma. I’m in the room as well, but I’m just there to look scary.”

The two men exchanged smiles. In spite of Gerry’s detection skills, intimidation was simply not in his arsenal. “A court appointed defense lawyer is in the room as well,” Gerry continued. “But he looked like he graduated from law school yesterday. He barely spoke.”

“A bit of luck,” Damon said and sat down.

“Perhaps, but after you hear what’s on the tape, you’ll see that a good defense lawyer would probably have advised Toma to tell us everything.”

Gerry pushed play and Margaret’s voice filled the room.

“We found your bicycle, Mr. Ljubic. The clerk of the sporting goods store in Towson confirmed that you sold it to him the day after you murdered Lirim Jovanovic. Without a chain.”

Silence filled the air while Margaret Hobbes waited for Toma to speak. He didn’t.

“Mr. Ljubic, the salesman you sold the bicycle to positively identified you. In addition, forensic evidence clearly shows that the chain used to strangle Lirim Jovanovic was the standard model for your bicycle.”

Toma winced audibly. “Maybe I changed the chain a year ago to a different model,” he said with an air of desperation. His voice was guttural.

Margaret pounced at him, her voice rising. “Are you telling me, Mr. Ljubic, that you did change the chain on your bicycle a year ago? And remember, if you’re not truthful, we’ll tack on an obstruction of justice charge so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

There was another pause. “So, Mr. Ljubic, did you or did you not change the chain on your bike?” she repeated.

“I didn’t,” he said quietly. “But I bought it used, so maybe the previous owner changed it.”

Margaret let the comment pass. “So, you sold Mr. Vanover your chainless bicycle the day after the murder and the chain marks around the dead man’s neck match the chain model standard to that very bicycle,” Margaret summarized. “In addition, Mr. Ljubic, your niece, Clara Jovanovic, gave us a statement. She informed us of the conversation you two had with your brother-in-law the day before he was killed. Stop me if this doesn’t sound familiar. You previously suspected that your brother-in-law was involved in your sister Tabby’s death, but you didn’t know for sure. Then a week ago Tuesday, Clara told you that Lirim had taken photos of a young girl a number of years ago.
 
In addition, Clara told you that Tabby not only found the pictures but she confronted Lirim just before she died. That was enough for you to decide that Lirim killed your sister and you wanted him dead.”

Toma didn’t respond.

Margaret continued. “And the police have learned, Mr. Ljubic, that your suspicions were correct. Lirim Jovanovic did indeed murder your sister.”

Damon pictured Toma breaking into a smile at the news, which would sweep away any reservations he had about strangling Lirim.

“Good,” muttered Toma.

“If you look at the evidence,” Margaret said, “you can see that no jury in the world will acquit you.” Of course, she left out the part about the other set of strangulation marks which the autopsy indicated delivered the death blow.

Toma asked if he could take a cigarette break and Margaret said no. He requested a glass of water, which Gerry fetched. Upon Gerry’s return, Toma started to speak.

“Okay,” Toma said, “I was in Lirim’s trailer, but I didn’t kill him and I can prove it.”

“When were you there, Mr. Ljubic? On the night of his murder?”

“Yes, and the night before.” He took a drink of water. “The night before he was killed, his trailer was empty and I waited for three or four hours, but he never arrived.”

Margaret’s voice cut in. “Were you waiting in his trailer?”

“I was. It was unlocked. I went in after midnight and he wasn’t there so I waited. He never came in so I left before the sun came up.” Damon knew Lirim had been with Victor at the gentlemen’s club and cigar bar all night.

Toma coughed. “I came back the following night. There was a group of kids having a bonfire and drinking. I parked on the street a few blocks away from the school and found a spot in the woods where I could see the backs of the trailers. At about a quarter after midnight, Lirim came out of his trailer and broke up the bonfire. His light went off fifteen minutes later. I planned to go in at two thirty in the morning when he would be sure to be asleep. But that didn’t happen.”

Toma stopped and Damon could hear him crunching ice between his teeth. There were quiet mumblings which Gerry said was the defense attorney whispering something to Toma and Toma cursing at him in return. “After that, the lawyer didn’t say another word,” Gerry explained to Damon and refilled both of their wine glasses. Damon arched his back to give it a good stretch. Gerry’s home was silent but for the sound of the recording.

“Please continue, Mr. Ljubic,” Margaret said.

“About an hour after the lights went out in Lirim’s trailer, I heard noises. It was dark and the school lights didn’t reach that part of the fairgrounds, but the moon was bright and my eyes had adjusted by then. I saw a man come out of the next mobile home over.”

Gerry gave Damon a double thumbs up as Margaret asked, “You mean the trailer right beside Lirim’s?”

“Yes.”

“Could you identify the person?”

“Not then, but later I could. Let me get to that.”

“Okay, please go on.”

“He was carrying a grocery bag. Just a brown paper one with the top folded over. He walked around the far end of his mobile home and disappeared from my view for about thirty seconds. Then he reentered my sight line and stepped into Lirim’s motor home without knocking. He was only in there for two minutes or so. I couldn’t hear anything and no one turned on the lights. At the time, I thought they must be whispering. After the man came back out I thought he’d reenter his mobile home but he didn’t. He carried the grocery bag up the hill to the playground at the school.”

“Were the lights on at the playground?” Margaret inquired.

“Yes. I tracked him through the woods. I was wearing soft-soled shoes and there weren’t any leaves on the ground so I was able to be pretty quiet. I don’t think he heard me. He never turned to look toward the woods.”

“Is that when you recognized him?” Margaret asked firmly. “Under the lights at the playground?”

“It was. It was Lirim’s accountant Victor. I tried to steer clear of Lirim as a general rule, despite being related to him through marriage. But it seemed like every time I saw Lirim, Victor was with him. So I knew the man by sight.”

“Victor McElroy?” Margaret said to clarify for the recorder.

“Yes, that’s him.”

On the recording, Damon could hear Margaret Hobbes asking Gerry to produce the Front Royal mug shot and Toma confirming Victor was the man he saw emerge from Lirim’s trailer at approximately one thirty in the morning on the day of Lirim’s murder. Margaret asked Toma to proceed.

“Victor got down on his knees and started digging with his hands on the underside of a green plastic slide. The playground’s base is mulch, so he took off the gloves he was wearing and dug in quickly. After he made a decent sized hole, he put the gloves back on, shoved the paper bag in the hole and covered it with mulch.”

“And what did you think he was doing?” Margaret asked.

“I thought that he and Lirim were involved in a narcotics sale. I figured the bag contained either money or drugs and he was hiding it so the people he shared his mobile home with wouldn’t find it. Or maybe he was a middleman and the playground slide was a pre-planned drop site for someone else to come along later and dig it out.”

“But Victor and Lirim were alone almost every day,” Margaret said, playing devil’s advocate. “Why wait until the middle of the night to make an exchange and why wear gloves?”

“I didn’t think about it at the time, and I don’t know if he had on gloves when he went into Lirim’s trailer. But if it had been a drug deal, Victor couldn’t be burying paper bags in the broad daylight. It doesn’t matter––they weren’t making an exchange.”

“So there weren’t drugs in the paper bag?”

“No.” He paused to instill his own effect. “Or cash. After he buried the bag, Victor returned to his motor home. I waited another two hours before doing anything. I assumed it would take some time for Lirim to fall back asleep after conducting his business with Victor, and I wanted to make sure no one else was coming to dig under the slide.”

“So you didn’t dig up the bag after Victor went back inside?”

“Not right away. I was too focused on Lirim. And if someone else came to dig up the bag and it wasn’t there, he might have tromped down to the fairgrounds and started knocking on doors and I didn’t want that happening.”

“Because you didn’t want to be interrupted while you were strangling Lirim,” Margaret said.

Toma ignored the jab. “At three forty five in the morning, I went into Lirim’s motor home. I had the bicycle chain with me. My eyes had adjusted to the night sky outside but the inside of the mobile home was even darker. Lirim’s bedroom was almost pitch black. I didn’t waste any time. I had gloves on and felt a foot at the near end of the bed so I moved quickly to the other end, wrapped the chain around the front of his neck and pulled up. The problem was, lieutenant, he didn’t resist at all.”

Margaret didn’t respond, so Toma kept speaking. “Lirim Jovanovic was dead when I tried to strangle him. His head and neck were totally slack. When I had touched his foot, I had gloves on and I think he had socks on, so I didn’t feel that it had gone cold. I wrapped the chain around his neck and jerked up so fast that I didn’t realize until after I started pulling that the man was already dead. I swear to it. I may have tried to kill him, but I didn’t kill him.”

“That’s quite a story, Mr. Ljubic,” Margaret said. “It sounds like a last ditch plea from a murderer trying to get by with a lesser crime.”

“It’s the truth and I can prove it.”

“You said that before. We certainly want to hear how, but first tell me why you didn’t tell us this story until now. It would have saved a whole lot of police effort if you had. And looked a lot better for you.”

Damon could hear ruffling noises as if Toma was shifting in his chair. Gruffness returned to his voice. “Just because I didn’t kill him, I know I’m not walking out of here a free man. I knew that if I told the truth I’d be going to jail. So I wasn’t going to tell the police unless I had to. Well, now that you found the bicycle and found out about that asshole killing my sister, I’m in a different position, aren’t I?”

Margaret answered. “You certainly are. Let’s hear your so-called proof.”

“I have the bag Victor buried in the playground,” Toma said and laughed. “After I realized Lirim was dead, it occurred to me that Victor must have killed him. So I decided to see what he hid under the slide. I dug it up and then took it to my car before I even opened it.”

“I have sources who say you don’t own a car, Mr. Ljubic,” Margaret said.

“It was a rental. A black compact car. I’m sure I can find the receipt if you need it.”

Margaret didn’t respond.

Toma continued. “I got in the car and drove about five miles to an empty parking lot at a strip mall. I looked in the bag and found two things. A pair of shearing scissors and a three-foot length of clothesline.”

“Did you touch the objects with your bare hands?”

“No way. I kept my gloves on the whole time, even while I was driving. I don’t think my bare hands ever even touched the paper bag.”