A MATCH MADE IN MURDER (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 5) (6 page)

              Kitty kept her eyes on Sterling as he rolled to a stop in the precinct parking lot. He was clearly dreading this. He’d been close with Harrison his entire career. If it were the case that his longtime friend and superior had killed off the women around him, it would be a very hard pill to swallow.

              They’d devised the best place to start would be to find out if Harrison had any connection to Mary when Sterling was eight.

              The calmer life that Steve had hinted at during dinner the night prior had revolved around fundraising for the local precinct and fire department. So even though Sterling was too close to Harrison to see it, it was apparent from Kitty’s perspective that Harrison could’ve been quite close to Steve and Mary. Just how close was precisely what they were hoping to discover.

              Kitty didn’t want to press the possibility that Mary could’ve been unfaithful during her marriage, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that a lot of murders stemmed from jealousies and love triangles. That had certainly been the case in her experience.

              Sterling held the door. Kitty passed through, stepping out of the hot afternoon sun and into the cool station house, which was teeming with rookies fresh out of the academy. She let Sterling lead the way across the homicide floor where Harrison was barking at two detectives, frustrated they’d botched something critical. He shouted insults using so many code terms it sounded like a foreign language.

              When Harrison took a breath, Sterling got his attention with a curt nod.

              “A word?” he asked.

              Kitty felt suddenly unsure whether she should sit in on their conversation. The precinct in general was an intimidating place, but the idea of leaning into one of the lieutenants to see if he might have been involved in a triple homicide was downright terrifying.

              “Kitty?” Sterling asked over his shoulder when he realized she wasn’t trailing behind them.

              “Go on ahead,” she waved. “I’ll wait in the lobby.”

              Sterling cocked his head at that then followed Harrison into his office where the blinds had already been drawn shut.

              Kitty milled back through the homicide floor and yielded to every officer and detective that crossed her path.

              She considered herself a strong investigator. She’d solved cases. She had a way of drawing information out of people. Sure, she often chased red herrings, but as luck would have it, those dead ends had led to promising leads. However, it was only when she was in the presence of highly trained detectives that she realized she could never do this job. It was brutal. It aged a person. It was a hard life.

              She should be planning her wedding right now. She should be standing on the bow of the William Wallace yacht and fantasizing about the big day, not puttering around a police station speculating on how her fiancé could possibly be the link between three murders.

              When she reached the lobby, she felt eyes on her and discovered Greer, one of the leading forensic pathologists, was staring at her. Ever since Greer had implied that Sterling was only dating Kitty because she was some kind of person of interest thanks to the murders that had been stacking up around her, let’s just say Kitty wasn’t Greer’s biggest fan.

              Greer pushed a button on the vending machine and a can of coke dropped down. She cracked it open, holding the can away from her pantsuit in case it sprayed, and then took a sip.

              “I heard,” she stated, as she sauntered casually over. Her tone was equally devoid of apology as it was accusation, but that didn’t mean Kitty lowered her guard.

              “If you think I had something to do with my cousin’s murder—”

              “I don’t.”

              It took a second to shift gears away from being combative, but Kitty managed as soon as it really did register that Greer had a shred of sympathy mixed in with the curiosity that flared behind her eyes.

              “You don’t?” Kitty asked to be certain Greer wouldn’t turn on her.

              Greer shook her head, knocked back her coke, and led her down the hall until they were standing at the mouth of the bustling homicide floor.

              “Word in the department is that the necklace was meant for you.”

             
Word traveled fast
. Kitty wondered who was responsible for that.

              “Given the timeline, the killer has to be older. I’d say in his fifties or sixties unless he was a delinquent in some way as a child, but even then it’s hard to imagine a young person having the savvy to poison a necklace.”

              “Sterling’s talking to Harrison right now,” Kitty explained, but Greer didn’t get it at first.

              She stared at the closed blinds that walled off the lieutenant's office.

              “How long have you known him?”

              “Harrison?” she asked, meeting Kitty’s gaze, an air of surprise arching her tone. “When I started with the precinct he’d already been here for nearly five years.”

              Greer wasn’t that much older than Sterling, but her perspective as an outsider could prove useful.

              “Did you get a sense of his dynamic with Steve, Sterling’s father?”

              Greer frowned, thinking. “They weren’t friendly, but as far as I know they didn’t really know each other.”

              “Steve used to do fundraising for the precinct,” Kitty offered, hoping that would jar her memory in some way.

              “Before my time.” Greer took another sip of her coke. “He’s shown up here a few times over the years, but again, I can’t say that there was anything strange about it.”

              “Sterling mentioned that he’d given Harrison plenty of reasons to come after him.”

              “He did?” Greer seemed impressed by this, but Kitty couldn’t tell if it was because it was out of Sterling’s character to imply he could’ve done anything to deserve this or because he had actually done something in the first place. Then Greer snorted a laugh that was equally hard to read. “Sterling’s gone off the grid a few times.”

              “Gone off the grid?”

              “On cases,” she clarified. “He’s ignored commands. Harrison got radio silence. And Sterling either bent or broke laws to take down the bad guy or get a confession. Sterling’s probably cost this department more in legal fees than he even makes salary-wise. He’s an expensive detective to protect.”

              It didn’t surprise her, intrigued her certainly, but it was no motive for Harrison to anonymously torment her fiancé for decades.

              “That’s what he’s doing in there?” she marveled. “Confronting Harrison on the possibility he killed his mother, wife, and your cousin?” Greer snorted another laugh. “The man has some serious balls.”

              “You have access to police reports, right?” Kitty asked, suddenly struck by an idea.

              “If they’re logged in our database.”

              “Sterling’s probably going to be awhile,” Kitty surmised. “Do you think I could get a copy of the police report from Mary Slaughter’s death?”

              Greer held her breath considering. “I’m not sure homicide would’ve written one up. Wasn’t Mary’s death ruled as natural?”

              “It was,” she stated. “But still, there has to be something.”

              “Well, it’s not from our department, but I can see if I can pull it up. Follow me.”

              Greer led Kitty up to her office where she shut the door and pulled up the archives on her computer.

              “Grab a chair,” Greer suggested when Kitty leaned over her to see the screen.

              Greer typed away, as Kitty got situated beside her.

              “Here it is,” she said, scrolling up and down the document so fast Kitty couldn’t read it. “It was written up. Messy handwriting. And whoever scanned it into the database did a poor job.”

              “It’s fine,” Kitty said, getting annoyed and a bit dizzy from all the scrolling. “Just keep it at the top and give me a minute.”

              Kitty skimmed the document, skipping over words that were written so badly they were eligible. She understood enough to get the basic gist, and then came to the section detailing Steve Slaughter’s statement.

              “What’s that word?” she asked Greer when it was clear one unusually messy section seemed promising.

              Greer squinted, leaning in close to the monitor.

              “Delivered.”

              Needing a second opinion, Kitty asked, “So this sentence says,
There was no need to unwrap the necklace. It had been delivered in a black box, which I gave to Mary
.”

              Greer read the sentence twice through before confirming.

              “Why was the responding officer asking about the necklace?”

              Once again, Greer took to speed scrolling through the police report and concluded. “It was an unusual detail. Mary had died in her nightgown, but was wearing an expensive antique necklace.” Greer shrugged. “The officer did a good job of recording all the details.”

              “It seems to me like the responders had their suspicions about the cause of death.”

              Greer met her gaze. “And Harrison shut them up?”

              Kitty studied her expression. Greer looked stunned, though doubts crept into her eyes as if she didn’t want to believe it.

              “I’d never met Harrison,” Kitty supplied. “He could’ve easily confused my cousin for me.”

              Greer pressed her mouth into a hard line, convinced.

              “What do you think you’re doing?”

              The loud voice made Kitty jump and turn in her chair, and the second she had, Harrison grabbed her arm and yanked her up.

              “You were warned about her,” he barked at Greer, whose mouth had dropped open with speechlessness. “Impeding an investigation,” he stated into Kitty’s ear as he dragged her out of the office. “You just earned yourself a night in a cell.”

              “What?! Why?”

              Answering wasn’t necessary. He’d already told her.

              “How many times do you have to be told not to meddle?” he challenged as he threw the secured door open that separated the hall from the jail.

              Harrison forced her down the row of cells.

              “Where’s Sterling?” she demanded. “I want to talk to my fiancé!”

              “Trust me, sweetheart. You’re about to.”

              He tossed her into one of the cells then locked the door, as Kitty realized Sterling was gripping the bars in the cell next to hers.

              “I told you, Sterling,” he went on. “You can’t work this case. You directly disobeyed my orders and dragged her into it.”

              Harrison looked disgusted with both of them, but Kitty took this over the top dramatic display as evidence of his guilt. When he stalked down the corridor and passed through the secured door, Kitty rushed to Sterling and placed her hands over his.

              “We can’t be in here all night! I have a ton to do on the wedding!”

              “We won’t be,” he said in a steely tone, as his gaze locked on the door Harrison had vanished behind.

              “What happened? What did you say to tick him off?”

              Sterling widened his eyes at her. “I guess he didn’t like being accused of three murders.”

              Kitty sank a bit. It had been a silly question.

              “Did you know the necklace had been delivered to your dad? He hadn’t even taken it out of the black box it had arrived in, only the packaging, the cardboard box.”

              “How do you know?”

              “I read his statement to the police up in Greer’s office,” she explained. “Sterling, Harrison had been on the scene. I think the responding officers thought the necklace was fishy, but Harrison steered them away from suspicion. Now he has us in jail? He’s obviously trying to cover his tracks.”

              Sterling mulled that over.

              “We have to talk to your dad,” she went on.

              “What we have to do is get out of here,” he sighed. “Grady didn’t pick up.”

              “So you already used your one phone call? When do I get mine?”

              “Don’t worry. I’m friends with half the guards down here. They let me make another call.”

              “So who’s bailing us out?”

              As if the very question had conjured her, Trudy passed through the secured door, led by one of the guards.

              “Never a dull moment in the life of Kitty Sinclair,” she said with a wry smile and a shake of her head.