Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:44:12
Subject: Our Investigation So Far or Good News/Bad News
From: det_harold_barstow@chicagopolice.org
To: det_thomas_johnson@chicagopolice.org, det_richard_longfellow@chicagopolice.org

Tom, Dick,

Wanted to get this off to you guys before I hit the hay.

Just a few thoughts on the DuBois case.

We got some GOOD NEWS on the Skip Valent warrant. He took the whole thing hook line and sinker, came by the station, patiently answered our questions (often with lies, sure, but he answered them), and then went home, where he was extremely surprised to see us again as we presented him with the search warrant.

And the good news part of this: there were a couple of surprises at the Valent residence. Turns out the guy's a real scumbag, we found about a dozen tabs of LSD and a half ounce of marijuana, enough that the fellah's in lockup tonight and the boys in narcotics will have plenty of questions for him in the morning.

BAD NEWS, and this is just a gut feeling but one backed up with decades of experience: I don't think he's our guy.

The whole love triangle hypothesis just seems to easy to me, and I don't think our Skipper boy has the talent to lie convincingly. His eyebrows bunch up every time he lies (which he did about the drugs, definitely) but I don't think this fellah's a killah. I think that maybe his "world class bitch" letter was just that. And who knows? From what we've seen so far, all indications are that the spiderwoman may very well have been a bitch of the highest rank.

Now I'm not crossing him off our list and I'm certainly not crossing off Ms. Susanne, who if you ask me is clearly one whacked p/t carpetmuncher, but I just don't think that Skippy would kill for her.

The more we untangle this web, the more connections appear, which have more connections attached to them. This will not be an open/shut I think. Regine seems to have had quite the lovelife AND quite the worklife, and seems to have made plenty of enemies along the way.

The intern I think is clearly out. She couldn't screw in a lightbulb much less pull off a killing would leave us scratching our head for more than five minutes. I'm not sure about the Skipper but my hunch tells me the guy is too dumb to pull off a murder this clean.

We've got his email and Dick we're looking forward to your analysis, but my feeling is we're back to square one. If the Susanne did it, she used this dumbfuck in a way that he didn't know about it. I just don't see that guy pulling the blade across. Who knows, we'll look at the forensics, but I don't see his kitchen cutlery being used but anything for pot roasts and salmon.

And what's truly TRAGIC? is that here I am 11:30PM having dedicated half my night to this DEBACLE you call a Cubs game. Wood pitches beautiful, 119 pitches, Mr. K, he gets one fuckup and then his "closer" Alfonseca loses the grip and then in the 10th that pardon my french FUCKING IDIOT Bellhorn not only fucks up the double play, he even fucks up the single play. What game did that moron think he was playing, Hopscotch? Those fat cheesesteak fuckers in Philadelphia go home all smiles and I'm out a hundred bucks to Sergeant Brisco. Who can blow me.

Shit.

Harry