Payback in Death, page 5
“Yes.” It still stung. A wasp bite in the gut.
“He knew about that and, though he was retired, followed the investigation. And he told me—his sounding board—that you were an exceptional police officer, one of honor, of duty and integrity. I hope you’ll remember that, because you hold him in your hands now.”
“Mrs. Greenleaf, I promise you I’ll do everything I can, as will the whole of my department as needed, to find out the truth of what happened here tonight.”
“I believe you because he would. Will you let Don help?”
“I’ll keep Lieutenant Webster apprised of the progress on the investigation. I can’t let him in more than that.”
She opened a drawer Eve had identified as the victim’s, took out a precisely folded white handkerchief. Pressed it to her cheek before she packed it.
“Don loved Martin, so he’ll push some. He was in love with you once.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
Now she smiled. “No, he wasn’t, but he thought he was, and that’s nearly the same. What he’s found with Darcia, that has a good chance. I hate that I’m glad Don found him before I did. I think it would’ve broken me. Shattered me so I’d never find all the pieces again.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” Eve said it almost casually, because she knew it for truth. “You’re a cop’s wife.”
“That’s right. That’s right.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes as if pushing tears back, then let them fall. “I need a few things from the bathroom, then I’ll get out of your way. I need to see Martin tomorrow. All of us do.”
“I’ll contact you as soon as possible.”
Nodding, Beth walked around the bed, laid a hand for a moment on the pillow on the left, then carried her bag from the room.
When Webster led her out the front door, she didn’t look back.
And when the door closed behind them, Eve breathed out, shoved both hands through her hair. “All right. Okay.”
“A hard night all around.”
“Yeah. Listen, I appreciate you.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I know it.”
“I appreciate you keeping Webster contained while I dealt with this.”
“Is that what I did? Contain him?”
“You gave him someone to unload on, someone to listen—and you kept him out of my way. He did it right, he gets that, and it couldn’t’ve been easy. Greenleaf was a father to him, and he walks in, finds him dead.”
Eve circled the room as she spoke. “Finds what looks like self-termination. He could’ve tried to cover it up, not that hard to do. Stage a break-in, a struggle, get rid of the message on the comp.”
“You’d have seen through that like polished glass.”
“Yeah, but he could’ve tried; he didn’t. He called it in, got uniforms and the MTs on scene. He requested me through channels. He kept his head, and it couldn’t have been easy.”
“And still, as he discovered the body, had a connection to the victim and a key to get in, you have to eliminate him as a suspect.”
“His statement holds up, and the security feed’s going to cover the rest. They came in through the window in the bedroom, which means someone got in and unlocked it between the last time Ms. Greenleaf washed it and tonight. And since the upstairs neighbor was in there tonight, she’s on the list.”
“You’re ruling out suicide.”
“Officially, not yet. Can’t. But this was staged, planned out, timed to hit when he was alone in the apartment. Do it quick so he doesn’t have time to react or fight, press his fingers to the stunner, drop it, get the message up. Time stamp on the message is less than a minute after TOD, but you can’t hang a case on that. Time stamp could be off, gauges aren’t a hundred percent to-the-minute accurate. It’s close enough to hold.”
She walked back to the bedroom. “You have to know he’ll be alone for two or three hours, so you time it for well after the wife’s out. Don’t want her doing a: Shit, forgot my whatever, and running back. Then it’s up or down the fire escape, depending. Do you know he’s a little hard of hearing? Bet you do. You know how he lives, his habits, his basic schedule.
“He’s got the game on-screen,” Eve added as she envisioned it. “Not too loud, but loud enough. Still, you’re quiet as you cross the room, look out, listen.”
She went back to the door, walked out. “Stop, check the stunner, make sure his back’s to the office door. Step behind him.” Eve stopped behind the chair. “Jab the stunner to his throat, deploy. Done. He convulses for a few seconds, then slumps.
“Now, first mistake. You press his thumb and index finger on the stunner, firm, clear, perfect prints. But they wouldn’t be if Greenleaf had deployed it. Why weren’t his prints on any other part of the weapon? Am I going to buy he wiped it clean before he picked it up to kill himself? No, I’m not. Am I going to buy his fingers wouldn’t shake a little when he held it to his own throat? And especially after, when his nervous system went wild? Negative on that, too. His hand didn’t sweat or shake, even a little?”
“And there’s something else.”
She glanced back at Roarke. “Is there?”
“The note, it’s too impersonal, too brief and cold, really, when you understand what they were together, meant to each other, how long they’d been together. It speaks of guilt and regret, asks for forgiveness, but says nothing of love, nothing of the children they made or the children who come from that.”
“Exactly.” Eve fisted her hands on her hips as she paced. “You know, if you don’t like being told you think like a cop, you shouldn’t analyze evidence like one.”
“So noted.”
“Whoever left that message had a priority. The guilt—the job Greenleaf did. A cop who took down cops. That’s the motive, or the one I see with what I have so far.”
“There’s little more for you to see tonight—though your body clock’s likely telling you it’s morning.”
“May be why I’ve got a second wind.” And was revved up with it, she realized. “But no, nothing much more to do here tonight but seal it up.”
She retrieved her field kit.
“If you drive home, I can write up a brief report for Whitney to see when it actually is morning. I’ll send a text to Peabody, have her meet me here. We’ll go over the scene again, then I want another round with the neighbor, one with her cohab, after I run them both.”
She picked up her field kit. “I want to take a look at the security feed—apartment door, main door.”
“You’ll use your second wind for all that, then get some sleep.”
“That’s the plan,” she said as they stepped out of the apartment. “I didn’t really know him. Didn’t much like him, but didn’t really know him.”
“You’ll know him now.” In a gesture of understanding and support, he pressed a hand to the small of her back. “Few will know him better than you when you’re done. Whatever you learn, you’ll stand for him. Webster reached out to you because he knows that.”
“The captain did his job as he saw it. I’ll do mine.”
She sealed the door.
Chapter Four
She woke before first light, and with only the cat curled against the base of her spine.
“Time,” she muttered, then stared at the display that popped on the ceiling.
5:04.
She lay there sincerely wishing the five had been a six, because she was damn well awake. Roarke, she imagined, was fully dressed in one of his gazillionaire suits and heading a meeting with someone somewhere on the other side of the planet, or beyond it.
On the off chance she could think herself back to sleep for an hour, she went over what she had.
Plenty of people going in or out—or out and in—Greenleaf’s building in the twelve hours prior to his death. She spotted the neighbor/friend—black, sleeveless dress, sky-high black sandals—heading in just after eighteen hundred. And she’d come out, with Beth Greenleaf, talking, laughing, at twenty-forty-eight.
Webster, carrying the brew, walked to the building entrance at twenty-one-twenty-three. Eight minutes later, MTs rushed to the door. The two uniform cops followed a scant minute after.
That had Webster approaching the main doors five minutes after TOD. The apartment door cam feed showed him arriving, knocking, then finally entering the apartment a full seven—close to eight—minutes after TOD.
Gauges and operator might be off a minute or two—three tops. Not seven.
She could, with absolute objectivity, take Webster off the suspect list.
She’d run the apartment door feed back twenty-four hours from TOD. No activity until Greenleaf left shortly before noon. Then his wife went out around fourteen hundred. He came back about an hour after she left, and she returned about an hour later.
No one came to or out of the apartment door until Elva Arnez arrived at twenty-thirty-seven.
Bedroom window, she thought again. The point of entry, the point of egress.
Since thinking only kept her awake, she rolled out of bed, calling for lights. Galahad rolled, too, but only onto his other side while she went directly for coffee.
She’d had plans for her first morning back, she considered as she drank that first sip of heaven. Catching up on paperwork, reviewing cases opened in her absence, closed in her absence. She’d had a nice vision of easing her way back into work, maybe even pulling out a cold case to dig into if nothing came in hot.
No chance of that now.
After downing the coffee, she headed into the shower.
She ordered the jets on hot and full, and just basked in them while she went over her morning schedule.
Crime scene, re-interview Arnez, interview Robards, her partner. Her run on them the night before hadn’t given her any prior connection to Greenleaf, no relations who’d been cops.
Robards had a couple of minor bumps in his teens. Shoplifting, defacing public property (graffiti), assault—charges dropped when witnesses corroborated he’d punched a guy who’d gotten his jollies grabbing a female by the tits and dry-humping her without consent.
Otherwise, their records looked clean. Both were gainfully employed, she as the manager of a downtown boutique, he as a vehicle mechanic.
Still, other than his wife, Elva Arnez was the last person known to see Greenleaf alive.
Except his killer.
Eve stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube. She closed her eyes, let the warm air swirl.
Ready for more coffee, she grabbed a robe. When she stepped out, Roarke stood at the AutoChef—yeah, a gazillionaire’s suit—with the cat circling his feet.
“You’ll get yours, mate.” He glanced over his shoulder.
That face, Eve thought. They’d passed the three-year mark, and that face could still deliver a short-armed jab straight to her heart.
“As will you. I’m thinking waffles would strike a note with you this morning.”
“They strike one with me every morning. I woke up at five.”
“I wasn’t far ahead of you. Here you are now, as it’s our first day back.” He set a plate of salmon on the floor. “Don’t bolt it. I’ve breakfast, so why don’t you see to a pot of coffee.”
“Got it.”
The cat bolted the first couple bites, then slowed down to savor—if cats savored—when no one snuck up to steal the rest of the salmon.
Eve programmed the coffee while Roarke set the domed plates on the table in the sitting area. Her ’link signaled.
She grabbed it from the table by the bed. “It’s Whitney.”
“Go on then. I have the coffee.”
“Sir,” she said as Whitney’s wide, dark face filled the ’link screen.
“Lieutenant. This is difficult news.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I knew Martin Greenleaf thirty years, I suppose. We didn’t always agree, but I never doubted his integrity or his dedication. Suicide is sometimes a brutal by-product of the job. From your report, I sense you don’t see this as the case.”
“I want to reexamine the scene this morning and consult with Morris before making that determination, Commander. But no, sir, I don’t see it as the case.”
“Lieutenant Webster finding him adds a complication.”
“Actually, Commander, I feel that’s an advantage. I can clear Webster, as I reviewed the security feed for the main building and the captain’s apartment. Webster arrived after TOD, and entered the scene minutes after that. The logs show he made the nine-one-one for the MTs and uniforms barely two minutes after the time stamp shows him entering the apartment. The captain had been dead nearly eight minutes before Webster entered the apartment.”
“From the detective’s and the department’s vantage point, that’s a relief. How is it an advantage?”
She’d thought that through as well. Point by point.
“If this is homicide, the killer didn’t expect anyone, and assumed the body would go undiscovered for another two or three hours. Webster gave us a jump. Added, the spouse may have compromised the scene if she’d discovered the body. Even a cop’s wife would react, might touch or move the body, the weapon. Webster secured it, followed procedure. He didn’t contact me personally, but went through Dispatch with a request.”
Never taking his eyes off hers, Whitney nodded. “He can’t be part of the investigative team.”
“No, sir, understood. I’ve agreed to keep him apprised of developments and would like to use him, as needed, for insight. He’s very close to the family, Commander.”
“I’ll leave that to your judgment. I need to know when you’ve determined homicide. As I believe you will. We weren’t friends, but I knew the man for three decades, and I know he had pride in his record on the job. I don’t believe he’d mark that record with suicide.”
“I appreciate your insight there, sir. I’ll contact you after I’ve consulted with Morris.”
“Good. Welcome back, Lieutenant. Whitney out.”
“So the day starts early,” Roarke commented.
“Yeah.” She set the ’link back down. “At least it starts with waffles.”
And bacon, she saw when he removed the domes. And plump berries.
Eve drowned the waffles in butter and syrup.
“I can’t say it’s murder yet, not even to Whitney. Not until I get Morris’s report.”
“But it’s murder.”
“It sure as hell is. A decent plan to set it up as suicide. Decent,” she repeated. “Not close to foolproof. But say Webster doesn’t find him. The spouse does and, in her understandable shock, she grabs the body, so that’s compromised. She kicks the weapon in her rush to get to her husband, or she picks it up. That’s compromised.”
She could see it, she thought as she ate waffles. She could see just how it had been meant to go down.
“Maybe whoever catches the case doesn’t notice the single unlocked window. I’d kick their stupid ass, but maybe. Or maybe Webster arrived before the killer locked it again. Could you lock a window from the outside?”
“Me personally, or anyone?”
Walked into that one, she thought.
“Start with you personally.”
“Yes, and I have.”
She considered that over a bite of waffle. “How?”
“Depends on the lock and the window, of course. No alarms wired on these, and simple—but sturdy—thumb-style locks. The simplest way, if you want to ghost it, would be a high-powered magnet pressed to the glass at the point of the lock. With finesse you could unlock and relock.
“Unless you’re well practiced, it would take some time, some patience, and that considerable finesse.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” As she ate, she tried to picture it. “More time on the fire escape adds more risk somebody spots you on there. It’s dark, but it’s barely after nine, and people are out and about. It’s a nice night. That’s a maybe.”
“Another maybe is the widow left it unlocked, simply forgot. You take her at her word she didn’t. And I agree. Another investigator might not.”
“One or two windows unlocked, that’s careless, most likely on the victim or widow’s part. A single one unlocked that leads to the fire escape?”
Shaking her head, she ate some bacon.
“That’s a rookie mistake. Whoever did this had a decent plan, but isn’t a pro. And I don’t think a cop.”
“You worry about that.”
“Sure.”
Had to, she knew, when the victim was an IAB captain. Retired or not.
“But a cop would know better than to put just two clear prints on the weapon. And if it’s me doing it? I find a way to lock that window from the outside, or I unlock a few more before I leave the scene. An investigator could wonder, justifiably, if the widow’s just confused about the locked windows, or if one of them opened a couple to get a breeze, then forgot to lock them up again.
“It’s the one that sticks out, the one that wants to say: I’m just a coincidence. And bollocks to that.”
Roarke pointed a warning finger at the cat, who’d finished the salmon and hoped for a bacon chaser.
Galahad sat and furiously began to wash.
“Then there’s the note,” Roarke said.
“And you had that right. It’s the wrong tone. And she’d have known—he couldn’t have hidden it from her—if he’d been planning to self-terminate. Add now I trust Whitney’s judgment, and he says Greenleaf had too much pride in the work he did to end it with a scar like this.”
She drank some coffee. “Why does a man who’s about to kill himself have the game on-screen? Maybe, you could say maybe, for the comfort, the normality. But I don’t buy it.
“Webster tips the scales,” she added. “Greenleaf’s not going to tell him to come over, shoot the bull awhile if he’s going to shove a stunner under his jaw. If you want to try the theory he wanted Webster to find him, then why did he wait until nearly twenty after nine when Webster was coming by about nine? He didn’t do it until nearly twenty after nine—that’s a half hour after she and the neighbor left.”
She shrugged. “Timing’s off, and that’s a fact. Timing’s off because the killer didn’t know anyone was coming over.”
