Empty Promises

They called the Yellow Cab office and asked that a renewed search of the company’s records be made for the time between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. on the evening Duerksen died.
    “Maybe you missed something?” Tando asked.
    A few hours later the dispatcher called back excitedly, “I found two trips to the Duerksen apartment on the fourteenth—one in the morning to the Central Loan and one at 7:17 P.M. ”
    It was a very important discovery; by 7:17 on that night, Larry Duerksen was already dead, and Gareth Liefbach swore he had never left his apartment. The second driver called to the victim’s apartment remembered his fare. The man who got in his cab had a mustache and was wearing a fleece-lined brown jacket. “I drove him to the south end of the University Bridge. I took the guy to the Red Robin Tavern just across the bridge from the U District,” he said. “He was gonna meet a friend there. I let him off. Anyway, I let him off at the tavern. It’s maybe a five- to seven-minute ride when there’s no traffic. I turned around and just got to the north end of the bridge when I got the call to go back to the Red Robin. The guy told me his friend didn’t show up and he wanted me to take him back to his place.”
    Asked if there was anything unusual about his fare, the driver nodded. “He was soaking wet when I picked him up at his apartment—a lot wetter than he would have gotten just running from the apartment to the cab.”
    “Anything else you might remember about him?” the detectives asked.
    “Well, like I said, he was sopping wet when I picked him up at 7:17, and he was really excited and jumpy. He sure didn’t wait long for his friend to show up.”
    It was one mile from Duerksen’s apartment to the Red Robin Tavern. The popular spot backed up to the Lake Washington Ship Canal, a waterway that was very deep—deep enough to accommodate large ships that passed under the drawbridge a few hundred feet to the west. It took the investigators exactly four and a half minutes to retrace the route from Duerksen’s apartment to the tavern.
    They knew now what led up to the events of the night of December 14. Gareth Leifbach had led Larry Duerksen to believe they would be together forever, promising him a life of adventure and commitment, the things Larry had always longed for. Then, on December 7, Gareth persuaded Larry to have his life insured for half a million dollars. The policy became 50 percent effective on December 12.
    On December 14, Larry told friends that he and Gareth were to have a secret meeting with someone from the Dorian Society on campus. Shortly before 7:00 P.M. , Lorraine Lacey saw two men walking toward the George Washington statue. She heard gunfire and saw a flash as the shorter of the two—the man wearing a fleece-lined jacket—reached toward the other, who had fallen to the ground. Then she watched the shorter man run away.
    The movements had been choreographed perfectly, down to the minute, if not the second. At 7:12, Gareth Leifbach called a cab. He took that cab to the University Bridge area at 7:17. At 7:22, he left the cab, walked behind the tavern, and in all likelihood, threw the Beretta into the ship canal. At 7:29 the cab picked him up again and brought him back to Larry’s apartment by 7:34.
    Gareth was there moments after 8:00, when the hospital called to tell him that his roommate had been shot and killed. Leifbach reacted with appropriate shock and began to sob. He then called Larry’s women friends to come over to help him “cope with my sorrow.”
    When the campus police arrived to question Leifbach, they noted that his coat was still soaking wet, although he claimed to have been inside the apartment since 2:30 P.M.
    Leifbach continued to perpetuate the myth of threats against Larry Duerksen. Was it possible that he’d listened to Larry’s tall stories and decided his roommate’s exaggerations provided the perfect setup? Perhaps, but more likely, someone had tortured Larry with scary phone calls and threats, and that someone was Gareth Leifbach. If everyone believed that Larry had been threatened, there would be a good reason to take out a huge insurance policy on him. More important, there would be a built-in suspect if something should happen to Larry.
    Detectives now felt they had probable cause to arrest Gareth Leifbach for the murder of Larry Duerksen. After discussing it with Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Phil Killien, an arrest warrant was issued. It