Deception (6 page)

“Triangulating body location. An inch here and there can make all the difference.”

I went to the front door and asked Dorsey, “Witnesses?”

“Nobody. The people we’ve talked to came when they saw the patrol cars or got a wake-up call from the media. Some are from those apartments.”

He pointed at a two-story building the next street over, where most of the blinds were closed. I saw one television on, and in the next apartment, barely visible, someone with elbows pointed outward, which made me think they might be holding binoculars.

“Nobody we’ve talked with on this street saw anything—except somebody noticed two vagrants who often wander over here from their settlement three streets down.”

“Who made the 911 call?”

He shrugged. “Want me to check?”

“Manny’ll handle it. Talk to the rubbernecks?” I pointed to the dozen people on the other side of a police tape, including three kids who should’ve been in bed.

“We’ve focused on protecting the scene.”

“Good choice.” I turned back to Clarence. “Once I finish here, we’ll canvass for witnesses, take written statements.”

“These guys collecting stuff in the bags—are they called CSIs? Or criminologists?”

“Criminologists aren’t evidence collectors, they’re experts in why criminals commit crimes. What you know as CSIs are what we call criminalists. They’re crime scene techs, evidence collectors. They make sketches, usually a detailed drawing later. They’re more artistic than detectives.”

He peered at my sketch on the yellow pad. “I hope so. Keisha drew better than that in first grade. Where do they take the bags?”

“Evidence locker. They maintain a chain of custody. If we have a particular lab request, we ask. Otherwise, they check for fingerprints, DNA traces, et cetera. Then they search for a match.” I looked up at him. “Can I do my job now?”

“Part of your job is helping me do mine.”

“Yeah. The attachment.”

Carlton Hatch loudly pronounced death. Everybody else stifled their smirks.

“What’s the medical examiner’s role?” Clarence asked.

“He’s the ranking official at the crime scene, even over the lead detective. Which is why I don’t like him showing up early. Generally, they estimate cause of death and time of death, then go over the results of the autopsy. Then revise as needed. They usually show up on the scene later. Not Carlton Hatch.”

“Chandler!”

Manny Domast exploded into the room. There are advantages to having a thirty-six-year-old partner who’s a former gangbanger. He’s street savvy, shrewd, bold. A pit bull.

He’s also sixty-grit sandpaper.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“We weren’t the up team, man. What happened?”

“Not sure. Maybe a sick detective or two deaths in one night? Somehow we got bumped up to the top.”

“That’s crazy, man. Maria’s pulling a shift at the hospital. I had to get the kids dressed and into the car. Who wants to take three kids under five in the middle of the night?”

“Detective Domast,” said James Earl Jones, or someone borrowing his voice. “It’s been a long time.”

Manny twirled to look straight into the knot in Clarence Abernathy’s tie.

“It’s just gettin’ worse,” Manny said.

“You read your e-mail, right?” I asked. “And the attachment?”

“Where’d you find him this time of night?” Manny said. “Jazzy’s Barbecue?”

“We’ve been investigating,” Clarence said, “while you were fighting chickens behind Taco Bell.”

“Whoa, hold it,” I said. “Look, you guys don’t like each other, and I don’t like either of you. But we’ve got a job to do. Manny, meet Lynn Carpenter,
Tribune
photographer.”

Carp extended her hand. Manny didn’t.

“Photographer?”

“I thought the same. Before I realized how the public good would be served with crime scene photos.”

“But that’ll compromise—”

“Supposedly that’s not going to happen.”

“It’s all in the attachment,” Clarence said. Not sweetly.

I asked a criminalist, “Those chairs clean? The table?” I looked at Clarence and Manny. “Sit down, both of you.”

Neither budged.

“Sit!”

Clarence sat. Manny pulled up a chair on the opposite side.

“Let’s get you up to speed, Manny.” We did.

Manny and Clarence and I once drove to a baseball game in Seattle, with Obadiah, Clarence’s dad, the best man I’ve ever known. Obadiah’s presence had made them civil. It was a long time ago. Obadiah Abernathy’s magic was gone.

Manny gave Clarence one last hundred-yard stare, from two feet away, then went to the bedroom to examine the broken window.

“Manny’s got an attitude,” I said to Carp. “In time, he grows on you.”
Like mildew
.

I stood beside the professor’s desk looking at two piles of papers, one with a red C on the top, the other unmarked.

“Philosophy 102,” I read. “Ethics.”

“May I touch them?” Clarence asked.

“As long as your gloves are on. Careful.”

Clarence shuffled through them. “Mostly Cs and Bs. A few Ds. Not a single A. Either he’s a tough grader or he was in a bad mood.”

“Or his students are dunderheads,” Carp said.

Dunderheads? I liked it. She was winning me over.

“Interesting,” Dr. Hatch said, pointing at the computer monitor.

“One thing at a time.” I flipped through the stacks. “Fifteen graded. Five to go.”

Next to the papers were seven piles of playing cards, faceup, with other cards staggered below them.

“Solitaire?” Abernathy asked.

“I’ve seen murders over poker, never solitaire. But it gives us the victim’s frame of mind, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d stopped grading papers. If he was playing solitaire, he was bored, wanting to kill time.”

“Or taking a break from the papers,” Manny said, reappearing. “Rewarding himself.”

“Or he might have been distracted from his work,” I said. “Knew something was looming. Nervous. Expecting someone? Check out the last card facing up, by the main deck. What do you see, Abernathy?”

“The ace of spades.”

“Anything strike you as strange?”

“No.”

“It hasn’t been played.”

“So?”

“Look, he’s got two aces played above, diamonds and clubs, with a two and a three on it. With this kind of solitaire, when you flip an ace you play it then build on it. It’s a no-brainer. You don’t leave it sitting there like that. You make your play. Unless you’re interrupted.”

“Meaning what?”

“He stopped midstream. When someone came to the door, if that’s what happened, he was playing solitaire, not grading papers.”

I noticed a criminalist poised over the professor’s body, shining a flashlight.

“What you seeing?” I asked.

“A strand of hair,” he said. “Not the professor’s.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Bag it.”

“Mind if I move that lamp?” Carp asked.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“About three inches back from the screen,” Carp said.

“Hey, I’m here to serve you
Trib
folks. Can I order you a pizza?”

“Double pepperoni, double cheese,” Carp said, smiling.

I froze. “Who told you that?”

“Told me what?”

“My favorite pizza. Double pepperoni, double cheese.”

“That’s my favorite pizza,” Carp said. “Always has been.”

It was one of those magical moments. If it had been a movie, the music would have changed. Lynn Carpenter was speaking my love language.

“I’ll search the desk,” I said, eyeing Carp. “Manny, you want to grill the rubbernecks?”

“Nobody’s done that?” He was out the door, pulling out pad and pen, a warrior looking for a war.

In the professor’s oak desk, I discovered paper clips, rubber bands, a roll of peppermint BreathSavers, an unopened Snickers bar, reading glasses, three blue and four black Pilot G2 gel pens, three phone numbers without names, a Matt Hasselbeck rookie card, and a Shaun Alexander MVP card. Plus a nearly empty 8.45-ounce bottle of Pelikan fountain pen ink, royal blue.

I showed the ink bottle to Clarence.

“They still make fountain pens?” he asked.

“I just realized,” Carp said, pointing to a corkboard covered with pictures, including a newspaper clipping. “I know this man. I took that picture. He was receiving the Rotary Club community service award.” She scanned the article. “For his ‘investment in the lives of young people.’ It goes to one college professor each year.”

“When was it taken?” I asked.

“June, I think.” She stepped closer. “Yeah. The June 13 edition. So I took it June 12.”

“What was he like?”

“Seemed a bit … taken with himself.”

“Yeah,” I said, stepping in close beside her to view the picture. “Some men can be real jerks. Not every man’s humble and sensitive like me.”

She nodded knowingly.

“What’ve you found, Chandler?” Another familiar voice. I turned.

“Sudd?
What are you doing here?”

Kim Suda’s one of our two female homicide detectives. She’s all female and all detective, petite but powerful, with a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She was wearing a stylish maroon coat.

“I live six blocks from here. I couldn’t sleep, so I took a drive. Heard about it on the monitor and figured I’d check it out.”

“You don’t get enough murders?”

“Professional hazard. Architects look at buildings; I check out murders. You’ve never dropped by someone else’s crime scene?” Truth was, I had. Three times.

“It’s getting to be a rock concert in here,” I said. “Make yourself useful … get that patrol out; then tell me if you see something helpful.”

“You got it, boss.” Within ten seconds she had her hand on the arm of a uniformed officer. Smiling sweetly, she led him out the door.

“Who’s she?” Clarence asked.

“Kim Suda. Homicide detective. Been in the department five years. Chris Doyle’s her partner.”

“Strange time to drop by.”

“We detectives are strange people.”

Clarence nodded, more vigorously than necessary.

I saw Suda and Carpenter watching each other. No smiles. Two attractive females suspicious of each other? Both wanting to impress me?

Once upon a time I thought I understood women.

What an idiot.

Clarence and Carp drifted from me, walking around the room talking and picture-taking.

I munched on the Snickers bar. It had been checked for prints. No sense letting it rot in the evidence room.

“Carp’s going outside to take pictures of the neighborhood,” Abernathy announced. “Eventually we’ll want to use one or two for a feature. Will they let her back in?”

“Got your ticket stub?” I asked her.

“Thought maybe you’d stamp my hand.”

“Once we start doing general admissions we’ll have to do that. Tell Guerino and Dorsey I said they should let you back in. Let me know if they give you problems.”

She smiled again. I’m not used to all these smiles at murder scenes. I looked at her, heart aflutter. She’d had me at double cheese.

I walked over to the far end of the couch, against the wall. I noticed crumbs on the ground. Big crumbs.

“What’s this?” I asked the criminalist.

“Figured you’d want to see it as is before we vacuumed.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Crumbs,” he said.

“What kind?”

“Graham cracker?”

I looked closely. Someone had sat on the couch eating.

On my hands and knees, I looked over every inch of the coffee table. It was clean except for two identical circular stains two feet apart. They looked recent, slight moisture still evident. I took close-up photos of both stains, jotting down which picture corresponded to which stain. Then I took a wide-angle of the coffee table in relation to the couch, noting the location of the crumbs.

“You can bag the crumbs,” I told the tech. “Need them all?”

“Nope. Maybe a third.”

I reached down and picked up three big crumbs. I went to my briefcase and took out a water bottle to get the taste of Snickers off my palate. I put the yellow-brownish crumbs in my mouth.

“Not graham cracker,” I said. “Granola bar. The crunchy type, not chewy. With a nut component. Maybe almond. Or hazelnut.”

“They could use your mouth in the crime lab.”

I went to the kitchen sink and found what I was looking for: two glasses, one with a residue of white wine.

“Test this,” I said to the criminalist. “Fingerprints and DNA.”

I searched for a wine bottle. Nothing in the fridge, garbage, or on the counter.

“I want to know what kind of wine.”

Two empty bottles of Budweiser sat on the counter to the left of the sink. “At least he drank a good beer,” I said.

“Bag them?”

“Why not?”

Ten minutes later I was back on the floor, hunting more crumbs (being a specialist in food particles), when I noticed something by the corner of the right front leg of the couch, six inches from the north wall. It was blue and black. I scooted over, stared at it in disbelief, then picked it up.

“What are you doing?” Kim Suda’s voice sounded accusing, but her voice usually does.

I snapped my neck around. “Nothing.” I heard the nerves in my voice. Had she seen what I picked up? I hid it in my hand and stood.

“What are
you
doing, Suda? It’s my crime scene.”

“You sound like you did it.”

“If I’d done it, it would’ve been between nine and five.”

“What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing. What’s in your brain?”

“Find something?” the tech asked.

“Nada,” I said, putting my hand in my coat pocket while my body ran interference. “Just a shadow. Bathroom done?”

“Good to go. Nothing big. Hair samples with his brush. Follicles, presumably his. I left the toothbrushes for you to see. Two of them. We’ll take them for saliva.”

I walked to the bathroom. One Sonicare electric toothbrush, plugged into the charger. The other was a Colgate, old and frayed. Clarence joined me.

“Excuse me,” I said to Clarence. “I have some business.”

I locked the bathroom door. I heard my heart pound as I took out the piece of paper. I stared at it. It was a gum wrapper.