Authors: Gregg Olsen
Closer Than Blood (7 page)
Kaminski waited for her to collect herself. Her eyes were damp with tears, but none flowed down her cheeks. She was a coolheaded woman, a logical woman. She'd expected the worst and had prepared herself for the moment when she'd knew with certainty, with utter conviction, that she was alone in the world.
What came from her lips next would have been stunning to the most veteran detective.
“I'll need a lawyer,” she said. “Won't I?”
“Why would that be?” he asked.
“Just call it a hunch,” she said, this time looking directly at him. “You'll focus the investigation on me. I understand it. I know how things are done. In the end, you'll have to look elsewhere because I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“No one is looking at you,” Kaminski said.
She looked past him once more, breaking the gaze they'd held. “Not now. But tomorrow somone will. Someone will say the ugliest things and your minions will circle me and my tragedy like a school of sharks. Each after a piece.”
She stopped talking.
Kaminski stood there in uncomfortable silence.
“Detective,” she finally said. “I want to know one thing.”
“What's that?”
“How am I supposed to live without him? He was my soul mate. I loved him.”
Tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“Again, I'm truly sorry for your loss,” he said, taking a couple of steps backward before turning for the door.
She looked back at the sky through the window, turning to the blush of a new day. “Thank you, Detective,” she said.
The beige Princess phone next to Tori O'Neal Connelly's bedside rang. She smoothed her covers and disregarded it for a moment. But the ring was persistent and altogether annoying. She reached for it, wincing with the pain that came with stretching skin that had been sutured. She assumed it was a nurse or, as she liked to call them, an
attendant
from the hospital. She planned on telling whoever it was that she would make an outgoing call if she wanted anything. Tori was never shy about indicating whatever it was she wanted. Her heart's desire was hardwired to her mouth.
attendant
from the hospital. She planned on telling whoever it was that she would make an outgoing call if she wanted anything. Tori was never shy about indicating whatever it was she wanted. Her heart's desire was hardwired to her mouth.
As she clasped the receiver to her ear, nurse Diana Lowell entered the room.
“Hello,” Tori said into the mouthpiece. She shifted her body in the bed. Immediately, her face froze. She turned away from the nurse who was emptying a plastic bag liner brimming with used tissues and other nonsharps into a large disposal can.
“Yes,” she said.
Her voice was low. Not a whisper, but if Diana Lowell had actually tried to listen, it would have taken considerable effort.
“Understood,” she said, her eyes fixed on the nurse as she rolled the disposal can from the room to the bathroom.
She turned away.
“Don't ever call me here again,” she said, her voice, decidedly firm.
She pressed the button to disconnect the call. The line went dead, but she didn't put the phone down just yet.
“Don't worry. I will be fine,” she said, her eyes purposefully catching the attention of the hospital worker. “I miss you, too. I can't wait to see you.”
The nurse who frequently didn't see a need to hold her tongue just looked at her.
Tori shifted in the bed. “My sister,” she said. “She's coming to see me.”
Diana nodded and smiled, that practiced smile that didn't really betray the fact that she thought the patient with the dead husband was a B.S. artist of the highest order.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tacoma
The
Tacoma News Tribune
ran a follow-up to the shooting in the morning's paper:
Tacoma News Tribune
ran a follow-up to the shooting in the morning's paper:
Police Question Widow in North End Shooting
Tori Connelly, the wife of a Tacoma financial consultant, was questioned by police in conjunction with the shooting death of her husband, Alex.
“We're satisfied that this case will reach a proper conclusion soon,” said lead investigator Edmund Kaminski. “Ms. Connelly has been cooperative.”
A tech working in Tacoma Police Department's state-of-the-art forensics lab had taken a swab of Tori Connelly's hands for gunshot residue particles at the scene of her husband's murder. An analyst at the lab compared the particles captured by the swab to determine if the woman who'd been injured was the shooter. Law enforcement in Tacoma and elsewhere had become wary of gunshot residue in the past few years. There were several instances on the law books in which men had been wrongfully convicted when they tested positive for GSR when they'd only
handled
a gun, or had recently been in the proximity of one that had been fired. There had also been a famous Northwest case that was botched when it was determined that the GSR found on a shooter's jacket had been the result of contamination from a police detective who'd been at the firing range before going out to the murder scene.
handled
a gun, or had recently been in the proximity of one that had been fired. There had also been a famous Northwest case that was botched when it was determined that the GSR found on a shooter's jacket had been the result of contamination from a police detective who'd been at the firing range before going out to the murder scene.
Tori Connelly's white nightgown was next. It had been hanging in the biohazard room drying since the shooting. Specialist Cal Herzog spread out the garment on a table under fluorescent and ultraviolet lights to see what story it might tell.
Eddie Kaminski stood over the garment next to the tech, a young man in his late twenties with hair heavy with product and teeth that appeared all the whiter as the ultraviolet light bounced off the fabric of the filmy nightgown. The blood had already dried to a dark wine, almost chestnut, color.
The younger man, Rory, smoothed out the fabric, took a series of photos, and cut two small square patches from the bloodiest part of the material. He made a few remarks about the blood's pooling and how gravity had dragged a pair of rivulets down to the hemline.
“Can't be sure until we analyze it, but it doesn't look like there's anything here other than what we see. No semen. No other fluids,” he said.
“What's interesting is right here,” Cal said. His hands were gloved, but he didn't get close enough to the nightgown to really touch it. He motioned to the fabric, though his eyes stayed on the young man.
“What are you getting at?” Kaminski asked.
“Look closer.”
“I
am
looking closer,” Rory said, his teeth flashing like a cotton bale bound by steel wires. “I don't see anything.”
am
looking closer,” Rory said, his teeth flashing like a cotton bale bound by steel wires. “I don't see anything.”
“Precisely. There's nothing to see.”
“So? I'm not blind,” the young man said.
Cal rolled his eyes, enjoying the moment.
Kaminski held his tongue. What he wanted to say was something about the kid having earned his degree in a correspondence course or that whatever training he really had was B.S. He expressed his irritation because, well, it was fun to irritate the kid.
“If she was shot like she said she was, I'd expect a bullet hole, a tear, something in the nightgown, wouldn't you?”
Point made.
“Yeah, I guess I would.”
With the new widow still in the hospital, Eddie Kaminski returned to the scene of the shooting on North Junett. He'd noticed a koi pond near the walk up to the Connellys' front door the night of the shooting, but it wasn't because it was sinister. His former wife, Maria, had wanted to have a goldfish pond installed in their backyard early in their marriage. When they couldn't afford a landscaper, she dug the pond herself, shovel by shovel. Kaminski remembered coming home from a long day on patrol, and how happy she was that the inexpensive feeder goldfish she'd bought by the bucket had laid eggs. It wasn't the only news she had to share. She was pregnant. It was the happiest day of his life.
The last time he saw the pond was moving day, when all the happiness had literally drained from the Kaminskis' life. The pond had turned green and was full of Douglas fir needles, a decaying symbol of their dying marriage.
He walked up the pathway to the door of the stately Victorian and the koi pond. Just below the surface a fragment of red and white caught his attention. Kaminski bent down to get a better look. It was the edge of a plastic bag. The red, a half circle filled with another, smaller one, appeared to be the familiar logo of Target. He wondered what was more incongruentâa Target bag in that neighborhood or the presence of plastic refuse in a pristine pond.
He looked around for something to help retrieve the bag. The yard was perfectly landscaped with not a tool lying around, not even a garden shed. Nothing was handy, so the detective did his best to wrestle with some bamboo that had been artfully planted along the pond's farthest edge.
Another reason to hate this annoyingly invasive plant,
he thought.
he thought.
A piece snapped in his hands, and he poked the end through a small void in the lily padâstudded surface. It took some finessing, and he figured ice fishing north of Spokane with his dad had served him well when he snagged the bag and managed to pull it out.
It was heavy.
It didn't belong there.
He knew what he had. The bag conformed to the shape of its contents.
A gun.
“Not just
any
gun,” Kaminski said to himself, his heart pumping with a little more vigor. “The murder weapon.”
any
gun,” Kaminski said to himself, his heart pumping with a little more vigor. “The murder weapon.”
It had started in the kitchen with his back to the soapstone island. Tori wore a thin blouse that allowed her nipples to show. She opened the refrigerator and let the cold air pour over her body.
As if she needed to call attention to what she was selling and how good it would be.
Is there a more beautiful woman on the face of the earth? Not in magazines. Not on TV. The movies. Nowhere
, she thought, always the best marketer of her own charms. She spun around and latched her hands around the small of his back, pulling gently, teasingly.
, she thought, always the best marketer of her own charms. She spun around and latched her hands around the small of his back, pulling gently, teasingly.
“You seem a little excited,” she said, looking at her lover.
“That's lovely.”
He wanted to speak, but he didn't want to say the wrong thing. She was in control and he was going along for the ride, happily, hungrily.
Her fingertips slipped under his shirt and caressed his chest.
He leaned backward, pushing his pelvis toward her.
“I know what you want,” she said. Her voice was soft, yet playful.
“Yes, I know you do,” he said.
She undid his belt, then his jeans. Her fingers found his zipper and she pulled.
“A little tight,” she said. “Sorry.”
“That's okay.”
“Yes, it is,” she said, dropping to her knees.
He was breathing heavy by then. He closed his eyes and she put her mouth on him.
She stopped.
“Keep going,” he said.
“I will. I'll get you there. Just let me do what I do best.”
And she did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kitsap County
Cooking dinner in the Stark household was the kind of communal endeavor that artists so charmingly sketched for the
Saturday Evening Post
and that modern-day advertisers with buckets of guilt and products to sell still employed to remind people that the family that ate their meals together
stayed
together. Kendall and Steven alternated the roles of sous chef and head chef. On days when she was up to her neck with criminal investigations and the people who populated the files of her in-basket at the sheriff's office, Kendall liked the feel of a sharp knife in her hands as chief chopper. She enjoyed the way carbide made its way through a potato or an onion. The cut felt good.
Saturday Evening Post
and that modern-day advertisers with buckets of guilt and products to sell still employed to remind people that the family that ate their meals together
stayed
together. Kendall and Steven alternated the roles of sous chef and head chef. On days when she was up to her neck with criminal investigations and the people who populated the files of her in-basket at the sheriff's office, Kendall liked the feel of a sharp knife in her hands as chief chopper. She enjoyed the way carbide made its way through a potato or an onion. The cut felt good.
A release.
The day had been consumed by thoughts of the reunion, Lainie, and, of course, Tori. That her partner Josh Anderson was coming to dinner might drag the day to a new low. She pulled herself together.
Focus, Kendall. Good things. Happy things.
She looked around the kitchen. Things didn't get much better than what she saw. It wasâher son, her husband, her
home
âwhat she had dreamed about as a girl in Port Orchard.
home
âwhat she had dreamed about as a girl in Port Orchard.
The Starks had recently remodeled the kitchen, with Steven doing most of the work except the fabrication of the limestone slab countertop. Kendall sanded the cupboards before Steven lacquered them with a creamy white, but quickly learned that there was no glory in sanding. Increasingly, it was clear that the kitchen had been designed with Steven's preferences in mind, anyway. Kendall didn't care. The backside of the new island had, by default, become her domain. She prepped the saladâa mix of arugula, romaine, and fennelâand looked at the clock.
“You don't mind, do you?” she asked.
Steven stirred the contents of a saucepan.
“You mean an evening with To-Know-Me-Is-to-Love-Me?”
“I felt sorry for him,” Kendall said.
“Josh almost cost you your job. But, no, if you can forgive him, I can, too.”
Kendall turned to Cody, who was sitting at the kitchen table working on arranging dried pasta into an intricate design that suggested both chaos and order. Kendall was unsure if it was a road in a mountainous landscape or something else. Pasta was linked up, one piece after another, and fanned out into a kind of swirling shape. Cody had always been adept at puzzlesâsometimes putting them together with the reverse side up, using only shapes and not imagery to fit each piece together.
“You doing okay, babe?” Kendall asked.
Cody looked up, a faint smile on his round face. Whatever he was thinking about at that moment was a pleasant thought. It might have been dinner. It could have been the stars in the sky. Cody spoke, but not often. He was not an alien like some spiteful people consider those with autism, but a gentle spirit who had an awareness of everything around himâeven when it seemed he let no one inside.
“Good. I'm good,” he said.
“I know you are,” she said.
Cody had become more verbal in the past few months. And while his responses weren't exactly lengthy, they did get the point across, and they gave his parents and doctors hope that his particular form of autism might not be as severe as once thought. It was true that he'd likely never be able to function without continued support and guidance; he wasn't going to end up in some hospital somewhere. He was only nine, of course, but the Starks feared the day that they were gone and what their son would face in life without the love of those who knew him.
“Lasagna's ready to come out,” Steven said.
Kendall squeezed a lemon into the salad dressing she was mixing with a wire balloon whisk in a small glass bowl. She dropped in a little Dijon, some minced shallots, and a sprinkle of cayenne. With the tip of a spoon, she tasted the dressing, made a face, and added another squeeze of honey from a plastic bear-shaped bottle.
“Perfect timing,” she said, catching the sight of a BMW as it moved into the parking area behind the house. “Josh is here now.”
Josh Anderson had been an infrequent guest in the Stark residence for the past year. He'd heard about the remodel and had even offered to help out, but his proposal was halfhearted and the relationship was somewhat strained following their last major case, the so-called Kitsap Cutter, and subsequent media brouhaha. He stood at the doorway, bottle of Oregon pinot noir in hand and a somewhat nervous smile on his face. At fifty-two, Josh no longer looked like he was trying so hard to be the ladies' man that he'd once been. The gray at his temples was more pronounced, as though he'd given up on coloring it to “just a touch of gray.” His jacket, an ill-advised tweed with elbow patches that seemed a little more “professor” than “detective,” was a little tight around the middle.
“Ninety-two points on this one,” he said.
Steven took the bottle. “I'd probably like it if it had sixty points.”
Kendall motioned for Josh to come inside. She looked at Steven and rolled her eyes. It was a playful gesture, not to repudiate him for a lack of knowledge.
“My husband, the wine connoisseur,” she said.
Steven, however, took the bait. “It isn't that I don't like a good bottle of wine,” he said, “I just don't usually know the difference between the notes of this or that.”
“It was twenty bucks,” Josh said, hanging his jacket over the back of a chair. “I buy by price, not points.”
“Something we have in common besides Kendall,” Steven said.
Josh ignored the sarcasm, intended or merely the result of Steven's attempt at making a quip.
“Hi, Cody,” he said.
Cody looked at him, but said nothing.
“How's he doing?”
“He's doing better. Every day is better,” Kendall said.
“Wish I could say that about me.”
Josh Anderson may have been knocked down a peg in the past year, but he was still surprisingly adept at putting himself back into any conversation as its focus.
Steven uncorked the wine and poured it into the bulbous globes of Kendall's grandmother's stemwareâthe only thing they had in the house that was reserved for company. Josh somehow rated. Steven almost said something about that, but thought better of it. He kind of liked a kicked-to-the-curb Josh.
“Cheers,” Steven said, swirling the syrupy red liquid in his crystal wineglass.
Three glasses met in the clinking sound that comes with the promise of a good evening.
They went into the living room with its windows taking in glorious nighttime views of Puget Sound. The choppy waters had been sliced by a passing boat, leaving a foamy V from its engine to the rocky shoreline. They had a few moments before dinner and they chatted about the weather, the view, the things that they were doing around the house.
“How's that class reunion coming along?” Josh asked.
Kendall set down her wine. “Don't get me started.”
Steven looked at Josh and grinned. “Don't get
her
started.”
her
started.”
Kendall laughed. “Since you brought it up, Josh, I'll ask you to remind me never to get involved in another committee.” She glanced in Steven's direction. “Someone here could have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“Don't get me involved in this. You're a Wolf through and through,” he said, invoking the name of the South Kitsap High School mascot.
“So, really, how's it going?” Josh asked. It seemed that he wanted to talk about something other than himself or the gossip around the sheriff's office, which was fine with Kendall. There was a subject she really didn't want to get into, though she knew the conversation would go that way eventually.
She talked about the process of selecting everything with a group of people who had nothing in common other than they came from the same graduating class.
“Ask me about napkins sometime and I can bore you for a good two hours.”
“Napkins can be tricky,” Josh said. “Not that I'd know much about that.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “You seemed more the kind of guy who'd use your shirtsleeve to wipe off your mouth.” She paused. “Not that there's really anything wrong with that.”
They laughed a little. It was always fun to zing Josh. Zinging the pompous was always a good time.
With a lull in the conversation, Steven spoke up. “You did have one thing worth talking about today. Tell Josh about your old schoolmate, Tori.”
“She was your old schoolmate, too,” she said. “I told him.”
Josh looked at her. “What's up with your old pal? Win the lotto or something?”
Kendall shook her head. “Not hardly. I mentioned it today in the office. Tori's husband was shot and killed in Tacoma. She was shot, too. Her sister Lainie's on the reunion committee.”
Josh narrowed his brow and Kendall's demeanor had changed. If Kendall had mentioned it, it had been so fleeting that he'd missed it. He could have called her on it, but there was no point in that.
“What's up with Tori?” he asked. “I'm getting the vibe here that she's not in your top ten.”
Years on the job had allowed Josh and Kendall to understand each other only too well. He could read her and she didn't like that. Not at all.
She set down her wine. “We had our moments. I won't lie. But really, I was better friends with her twin.”
Kendall seemed uncomfortable and that made Josh dig a little deeper.
“Twins?”
This time Steven jumped in. “Yes, exactly the same, but completely different.”
Kendall looked at her husband, quietly acknowledging what he said was true, then turned her attention back to Josh.
“I like Lainie,” she said. Her tone was surprisingly defensive, as if she needed to back up the so-called good twin. For some reason or another. “And honestly, I have no idea how she could share the same genes with her sister.”
Kendall stood to go to the kitchen.
“Dinner's ready,” she said. “Be prepared, Josh, to have the best lasagna made by a non-Italian. My husband's a pretty good cook.”
She faced the lasagna pan and started cutting, the sharp knife slicing through layers of pasta and cheese, clear, distinct strata of white and amber. Each piece came from the pan in a perfect rectangle. There would be no messy, ill-shaped portion served for the cook or his wife.
“So what's the prognosis for Tori?” Josh asked.
Kendall handed him a plate. As steam curled from the food to the ceiling, he breathed in the garlic and oregano as if it were a drug and smiled.
Steven beamed. He knew he was a pretty good cook.
“I don't know,” Kendall said. “I really don't know much more than what I've told you.”
“Did you call Tacoma PD?” Josh asked.
When Kendall didn't answer right away, Steven echoed the question. “Did you, Kendall?”
She looked at her husband. It was a hard look, the kind of expression meant to shut down that line of questioning before it went too far.
Josh picked up the subtext of the conversation and pounced. “I didn't know you were that close,” Josh said.
“Tori and I were schoolmates,” she said. “End of story.”
“We all were,” Steven said, taking a bite. “But then so was Jason Reed.”
Jason Reed.
Kendall let out a quiet sigh at the mention of his name. She really didn't want to discuss Jason in front of Josh Anderson. Talking about Jason always brought back a flood of sad memories. Sometimes it brought tears, and with tears came too many questions.
Kendall let out a quiet sigh at the mention of his name. She really didn't want to discuss Jason in front of Josh Anderson. Talking about Jason always brought back a flood of sad memories. Sometimes it brought tears, and with tears came too many questions.
Steven spoke up. “Tori was driving a car that killed the guy. Back in high school.”
“Parm? I have some shredded in the kitchen,” Kendall said, in a completely ungraceful attempt to alter the direction of the conversation.
“Killed the guy?” Josh said, putting down his fork.
“It was an accident,” Steven said. “Wreck on Banner. At the Jump. Tori actually did some time for it in juvenile detention. Some people thought she did more and deserved more time. Not all accidents are accidental, you know.”
“Some class you SK Wolves must have had back then,” Josh said.
“I guess so. Jason's death hit us hard,” Kendall said, putting herself back into the conversation, seeking control. “He was so young and it was so final.”
“So, are you going to look into Jason's case?” Steven asked.
Kendall shook her head, a rote response to a question she'd already considered. “No,” she said, watching her son slide into a chair next to her. “Of course not. But I am worried about Lainie.”
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