OK, let's assume Chalem had on his cap because he just liked wearing it. Sounds reasonable enough to me.
We know Chalem rarely wore a suit so we can assume at least one appointment that day was out of the ordinary in importance. Perhaps Conkling kept calling because he knew about the appointment and wanted to know, for example, if a deal had been reached. Recall even as late as 8:30pm he had called and apparently been put off or else he wouldn't have kept trying to call back all night. This leads me to believe the appointment was probably the last one of the day (if indeed more had been scheduled earlier in the day). The fact that Lehmann drove down from Long Island also indicates the appointment was important.
I find it hard to believe that Chalem would wear a baseball cap on the rare day he was also wearing a suit... at least for a very important meeting. Now, as our premise is that he just liked wearing that cap in general, it is not unreasonable to assume that once the meeting was over he put the cap on.
So, under this scenario, the appointment was over and the other party had presumably left. Sure those people could have come back, but if the goal is to just off someone with no regard for trying to cover up your tracks, why diddle around? Why even bother to set up an appointment where others might know about it? After all, there were probably confirming phone calls, research, etc. that might point to you, or at least provide some good clues. Too risky, IMO.
I do think Chalem and Lehmann "knew" their attacker... but not necessarily the killer(s) themselves. If someone came to my door and said "jhild on SI sent me", I'd let them in. If someone came up to my door dressed in nice clothes and said they were lost, I might tend to help them as well. As I said earlier, if the killer(s) had truly known Chalem and Lehmann, they'd be quite concerned they'd be a suspect and probably try to hide their involvement as much as possible. I mean, I'd think it would be pretty hard for someone mad enough to kill someone else in cold blood to be able to totally mask their feelings so as not to be a suspect. Keep in mind that in such a scenario you can't assume there will be "strangers" who will be prime suspects so you would probably want to do the deed in such a way as to make it look like strangers might have been involved, like making it look like a burglary. That didn't happen.
- Jeff |
