Every Move She Makes, page 24
"Why?"
"Why d'ya think? Torrance was telling the man to screw himself if he took you off the task force-not that the guy had a clue. It was classic." He lobbed another paper ball. Missed. My glance strayed to the window of Torrance's office, to the back of his head as he listened to whatever it was that Andrews was telling him. "What'd the deputy chief say?" "Never got a chance. The chief told him to shut the hell up, and for Torrance to get with Andrews and fix this thing fast. Of course, you shoulda seen the DA's face when he realized he was being left outta the game." He tossed a few more wadded paper balls. "So, you 'n Torrance an item?" "No." Shipley paced the room, giving no indication the matter concerned him at all. Finally he stopped, turned to Rocky, and asked, "What'dya think?"
"About what?"
"About Foust doing Martin and Smith." "Right up his alley. Not that it bodes well for Gillespie. You aren't going home soon, are you?" he asked me. "No," I said. The way things were progressing, I wasn't sure if I'd ever get back home. "Where you staying at?" I was prevented from answering Markowski, because Andrews exited Torrance's office, telling him, "Let's get moving. We've got a lot of evidence to sort through."
Markowski made one last pitch. It hit the edge of the wastebasket, then dropped in. "He scores!"
"In dreams," Shipley said, pushing him from the room.
Swiveling around in my chair, I looked in Torrance's door. He sat at his desk, his chin resting on steepled fingers. His shoulders rose and fell with an inward sigh, and I wondered if he wished he'd never become involved with me and this nightmare of a case. And if he wanted to go home. When had he last seen his own house?
"Dollar for your thoughts," I called out from where I sat.
He turned toward me, schooling his features into a facade of granite.
"Isn't it 'a penny for your thoughts'?" "Inflation." I won a glimmer of a smile, and I thought, I know where your fissures are. The knowledge did me little good, since Torrance had made it clear by his lack of ...
attention during potentially intimate moments that we were a professional team only. After that, who knew? It was something I couldn't dwell on. Not if I wanted to concentrate on my cases. "I was thinking about Paolini and where he comes into this," Torrance said. "I think we need to discuss our options."
"Options to what?" I queried, moving into his office.
"Is he connected to the doctor's death? Is that why you're being made into a target? This case is becoming more complicated by the minutes"
"I was a target before she got killed. Only they missed."
"Maybe we need to go back to the basics." I pulled a chair to his desk and sat opposite him.
"Such as start at the beginning."
"I'm listening." "Good, because I'm not quite sure where the beginning is." I leaned back, propping one foot on my knee. "If we start with Paolini, we'd go back a year ago to when I got shot at the Twin Palms Motel. Which was also the night of the first known Slasher case. I can't imagine they're related, because we didn't know I would ever be investigating the Soma Slasher."
"Coincidence, then?"
"Has to be. I started a chart at home, listing the suspects victims, trying to sort through this, see what was related." I dug it out of my pocket and unfolded it. Torrance got up. On the wall to the left of the door was a dry erase board. He took a red marker and uncapped it. The marker's strong odor like nail polish filled the room. As I read off each of the victims, he listed them down the left side of the board: Ice Man, Patricia Mead-Scolari, Martin/Smith, and myself. Beneath each name he drew horizontal lines that ran the entire length of the board. Then he drew vertical lines down to form a grid of squares like a giant tic-tac-toe game, but with four squares across and down instead of three. While I looked at the board, Torrance poked his head out the door that led to his secretary's office, asking her to bring us a couple cups of coffee, and real half-and-half, if possible. He returned to the board. "Anything else?" "I'm working on it. Let me get a boost of caffeine." We waited for the coffee, which his secretary brewed fresh, then brought a few minutes later. We both stared at the board, sipping our coffee. "the process seemed right, but we were still missing our suspects. "I guess what we need to do is start making a connection," I said. "So far the common thread in all these cases appears to be these seeds. If the seeds were a suspect, we could put an X in every box."
Torrance took me literally, writing the word "Seeds" on the top left, over the first vertical row of boxes. Then he put an X in the boxes beside Ice Man, Mead-Scolari, and Martin/Smith, as well as the one beside my name. The curse of the deadly seeds. It sounded like a Nancy Drew mystery tide. "Definite link," he said, standing back to look at the vertical row of Xs beside each victim. "Okay. What else? Ice Man was found in the warehouse, so we need the Paolini connection." He wrote "Paolini/Foust" at the top, over the next vertical row. Paolini got an X
in the Ice Man and Martin/Smith boxes, as well as in my square.
"Scolari," I offered next, though I hated saying it.
Torrance wordlessly added Scolari's name, then poised his marker over the row of boxes beside the Ice Man. "No. No connection." He hesitated over the square beside Mead-Scolari's name.
"Yes," I said quietly.
He drew a red X there, then moved down to Martin/Smith.
"Yes.," My name.
I said nothing.
He put an X there as well.
I wanted to tell him to erase the last, that Scolari wouldn't try to kill me. "Hilliard Pharmaceutical," I said.
"They owned the building."
"A company as a suspect?"
"You have seeds." He waited.
"Okay, Evan Hilliard." He wrote the name at the top. Hilliard got an X
beside Ice Man and Mead-Scolari. "Josephine Hilliard." He added another row. Again, an X beside Ice Man and Mead-Scolari's name. We stood back and looked.
"Well," Torrance asked. "What does it tell you?"
"Looks like Scolari won the vote."
"Let's wait for the absentee ballots."
I liked Torrance a lot in that one moment. Even so, I regarded the vertical row of Xs below Scolari's name. On the off chance he was guilty, the connection was clear. But what if Paolini was guilty? If so, I could only connect him to two cases. Ice Man, and Martin and Smith. It was the seeds that made no sense. What could Paotini want with them? I stood, looking at all the names. My focus kept returning to Paolini.
"Why would he kill the doctor?"
"Who?"
"Paolini. I mean, I can almost understand him placing a hit on Martin and Smith, and possibly the Ice Man for the warehouse connection." "But perhaps that's merely coincidence. How long has it been since Paolini's organization leased that warehouse? And how long was the body there?" "We have no way of knowing. The pathologist can only give an estimate of the length of time the body was dead at the time it was frozen." I paced the length of his desk, thinking. The key to it all was up there, I was sure. "The Ice Man," I said, stopping in front of the dry erase board and tapping the area beside his name. "His case started the ball rolling when the seeds were found on his corpse. He's the one."
"So you think you can tie Patricia's murder to his, or to Paolini?"
"Not unless we get him identified." I thought of the article Torrance had pointed out to me in the Chronicle, the same article that seemed to have gotten Evan Hilliard so upset that afternoon he stormed into Josephine's office with his newspaper. Why would an announcement of their merger with the Arkansas-based Montgard Pharmaceutical make him mad? "Hold on a sec." I picked up the phone and dialed Shipley's desk.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Do me a favor. Get with Missing Persons, have them do a check in Arkansas, see if they have any missing persons who might match our frozen John Doe."
"Arkansas?"
"A hunch."
"Okay." That done, I returned my attention back to our list.
"You know that article you showed me this morning in the Chronicle?" I asked, eyeing the column where "Hilliard" was written, with Xs beside the Ice Man and Dr. Mead-Scolari rows. "About the merger?" Meeting Torrance's gaze, I nodded. "I don't know the first thing about pharmaceutical companies, but I'm thinking that maybe talking with the Hilliards isn't enough."
"What do you have in mind, Inspector?"
"A search warrant." It took about half an hour to dictate the warrant, which I gave to Gypsy to transcribe. She knew all the verbiage to put in between the important stuff regarding what we were looking for: documents, computer files, anything that showed the doctor may have been killed due to her research or knowledge in the company, or activities involving one Nicholas Paolini. Were Mead-Scolari not dead, it might be more difficult to obtain, especially considering laws on confidentiality. Of course, finding a prior homicide victim in a warehouse owned by Hilliard Pharmaceutical helped our case as well, despite no other connection being noted or known.
In truth, we were going in blind, not having any clue of what we were looking for. That was often the way with search warrants.
You went in, turned the place upside down, then came out with bits and pieces you hoped would materialize into evidence of significance. Gypsy handed us the transcribed warrant a little over two hours later. My intention was to "walk the warrant through," which meant skipping the usual routine of having the documents reviewed by the DNS office first, instead taking it straight to a judge for a signature. Hoping to avoid running into anyone, particularly from the DA's office, Torrance and I took the stairs to the second floor. When we exited the stairwell, I saw my ex at the opposite end of the hall, his back to us, in private conversation with a dark-haired woman of short stature, wearing a yellow business suit. Reid glanced around, and I caught a glimpse of the woman's face. When he leaned down and kissed her, I bristled.
Beth Skyler. Channil Two News.
Suddenly my missed Napa trip came to mind, calling Reid that morning at his hotel room, hearing her voice, and him telling me he was watching the news.
Skyler did the evening news only.
"That son of a bitch," I whispered. A moment later Reid and Skyler took off in separate directions. I moved back into the stairwell, not wanting to be seen. Torrance remained where he was, regarding me intently. "I thought it was over between you."
"It is."
"Really?" He started toward the judge's chambers.
"We better get this signed."
"It's not what you think," I said, catching up to him.
He waited for me to clue him in.
"The night that Patricia was killed, I was pretty sure someone leaked her murder to the press."
"How did you come to that conclusion?"
"By the questions Skyler was asking me. Things we wouldn't have released. You read the article the next day, saw the news. You can draw your own conclusions from what you saw."
"What would be his motivation?"
"Politics? Sex? Money? With Reid, who knows." We turned the corner, enroute to the judge's chambers, and ran straight into Reid. He acted cool toward me, speaking only with Torrance. "The DA's on my butt, Mike,"
he said. "Wants to know how soon we're gonna wrap this thing up." "The crystal ball's in the repair shop, Bettencourt," Torrance said, guiding me on toward the judge's chambers, holding the door open for me. I passed through, since I had the warrant. He stayed behind to continue his conversation with Reid, a stalling tactic, since neither of us wanted him to know we had a search warrant. The way Reid was eyeing me, however, gave me the feeling that Torrance's efforts would be wasted.
Once Reid found out, we couldn't exactly tell him to back off. Not when he was assigned to the task force. There was also the little matter of bypassing the DA's office in preparing the warrant. In a high-profile case such as this, feathers would be more than ruffled. I hoped to see judge Gehrhardt, but was shown to judge Earling's chambers instead. Earling was notorious for doing things by the book. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and was still dressed in his black judge's robe. All he needed was a powdered wig covering his already white hair to complete the effect of a nineteenth century hanging judge. Judge Earling's problem was that he was hanging the wrong people. Word on the street had it that if you were guilty, you wanted Earling and no jury.
Cops avoided him like stale doughnuts dunked in sour milk.
"DA go over this?" he asked, scratching his gray goatee while he pored over the first page.
"Uh, no, Your Honor. We have a bit of a time dilemma."
"Hmm, wouldn't think you'd take a chance in a case like this." He turned the second page, running his finger down the lines of legal prose, rapidly mumbling the words written so that he sounded something like an auctioneer without a microphone. "Everything looks okay so far. You've verified the address and such?" "Yes, sir," I said, just as his gaze strayed past me. I hoped whoever he was looking at was Torrance by him "Ah, Reid Bettencourt," the judge said, looking over the top of his spectacles. "I understand you're on the task force. Your boss let you pass a warrant through without reading it first?" Reid gave Torrance a dark look. "What warrant?" Judge Earling flipped back to the first page as though to refresh his memory on what he was reading. "To Hilliard Pharmaceutical regarding the Mead-Scolari matter." I stared straight at the warrant, avoiding Reid's gaze completely. if judge Earling wanted to be his typical stubborn self, he could refuse to sign it, thereby forcing us to go through the DNS office. That spelled another delay, undoubtedly until tomorrow. "I'm certain Lieutenant Andrews called the DA's office about this," I said. "In fact, I naturally assumed that's why Investigator Bettencourt was down here because the DA sent him." Now it was up to Reid. He could be a jerk, tell Earling I was full of it, or go along, then take us for whatever we had outside the door. And if he did, I was going to hang him for his tete--tete with Skyler. Ah, what the hell, I'd do it now. I met Reid's gaze and smiled sweetly while Torrance regarded us. When the judge wasn't looking, I mouthed two words to Reid.
Beth Skyler. I could almost see his wheels turning. Several seconds of silence, as his expression told me, You'llpay, somehow; then, "Yes, Your Honor." "Very well." The judge finished reading, signed his name, had me initial a minor change regarding the date being wrong on the fifth page, and we were off. "I can't believe you did this," Reid said as we strode down the hall to the elevators. "You drew up a warrant without informing the task force?" He stopped and wedged his way around us, blocking the UP button. We were to meet Markowski and Shipley in Homicide, then head straight for Hilliard Pharmaceutical. It was a low-risk warrant, no SWAT
team, since Hilliard Pharmaceutical was considered a safe business and there was very little chance of our being shot upon entry. I only hoped it stayed that way once we found whatever it was we were looking for.
Not that we didn't take precautions. First, however, I intended to confront my ex. "So, how long have you and the Channel Two newsgirl been dating? Certainly not before the Napa trip?" I didn't mention the leak for the simple reason I was saving that trump card.
"Kiss MY
"Enough." Torrance stepped between us. "I demand to know why I wasn't included in this warrant." Reid's face started turning red. He was ticked.
He deserved it.
Torrance answered. "You may not believe us, but if we were to call your office, go through the usual routine, we'd be another two hours. With elections coming up next year, the DA would want to handle it himself, and he's a busy man. No way would he let a deputy handle it, maybe steal a moment of glory right before campaign season starts." That was at least part of the truth. Suddenly I wondered if the elections weren't part of what was behind the leak. A political motive. I could accept that, whether I liked it or not. It fit Reid. "What?" Reid countered.
"You think you guys can write a warrant faster than us?" "Of course not," I lied. If we turned this into an us against-them thing, nothing would be accomplished. "All Torrance is saying is that we got a good lead and ran with it. We tried to get a hold of you, but you weren't there, and you know that Arlington isn't available, so it seemed simpler to do it ourselves." Arlington was a deputy DA who worked primarily with the Homicide detail. Under normal circumstances he would have sat in on the task force, had the DA not been concerned with Arlington running for his position next year. "Lieutenant?" A short, stocky female officer waved at Torrance from the lobby of the second floor, the gear on her Sam Brown jangling and squeaking with her movement. Torrance glanced at me, then Reid, as though worried we
might go at each other's throats if he left us alone.
"Don't worry about me," I said. He approached the brown-haired woman, but stood where he could keep an eye on us. She was the crime scene technician who had gone out, dusted for prints, and taken photos after the murders in Property. Since coming to Homicide, I knew just about every technician. The thought nagged at me, but before I could place why, Reid said, "You doing him?" "HI-hat?" I whipped my head around, unable to believe he'd said that. Another reason not to sleep with someone within these hallowed halls.
