Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (15 page)

“It doesn’t,” I admitted. “There’s a dead man in the other room. We have to focus on that.”

“So what should we do?”

I took a deep breath. “Call the police.” I grabbed my cell phone and
stared blankly for a moment, trying to remember the number for 911, before the panic lifted and I realized
that
was the number.

“Kate,” Vera said. “Wait.”

“Why?”

“I have to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Do you think he was shot?”

“I don’t know. He has holes in him. He could have been shot. Or he could have been stabbed, I guess. He didn’t die of natural causes, that’s for damn sure.”

“Then I have to tell you something else.”

I was almost afraid to ask. “Vera, if this is going to turn into one of those B-movie thrillers where the nicest person in the world is revealed as a sadistic killer, then I want you to know that my last meal will have been a soggy Bucktown burger, and frankly that’s just not acceptable. So whatever you’re about to tell me better not end with the words ‘serial killer.’”

“My gun is missing.”

I had to replay her last sentence in my head just to be sure. “You own a gun? You, who once scolded me for killing a bug because all living creatures share an equal place on the planet?” I snapped at her. “You own a gun?”

“Doug and I bought it yesterday. I told him about the message. The one you and the guys heard. He said it sounded dangerous. He said he didn’t think his ex-girlfriend would know any of that voice-altering stuff Victor talked about, so it must be someone from the restaurant. He wanted me to have protection.”

“Did he buy the gun?”

She shook her head. “Technically, I did. We bought from a private dealer in the western suburbs and afterwards, just so we were doing everything properly, I insisted we drive straight to the police station near my house, so I could get an application to register it.”

“So the police know you own a gun, which is now missing and possibly the murder weapon.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “This looks bad, doesn’t it? That’s why I wanted to call you first, because I figured it would look really bad.”

“I’ve worked on a dozen true crime shows where people were convicted with less evidence.”

“But aside from the gun—”

“You invested a heap of money in a restaurant that’s basically a construction site, without any construction going on. You started asking questions. Maybe you wanted your money back. Maybe you and Erik got into it about that. You did have words the other day.”

“That wasn’t about anything. I didn’t think we should keep emphasizing how elite the restaurant would be. What he said in his interview with you made the place look really bad,” she said. “But it wasn’t enough to kill anyone over.”

“That’s what
you
say it was about. The only person who could corroborate your story is permanently unavailable for comment,” I pointed out. “You say Doug called you. But if he didn’t call from a number traceable to him, then all we have is your word that he called. What if he doesn’t back you up? Then it looks like you came to the restaurant to meet Erik, got into a fight, and killed him with a gun you bought yesterday, just a few days after your argument.”

“But if we think it through, if you tell me what to say, it can all be explained, don’t you think?”

I stared at her. She believed somehow I knew what she should say, that I could protect her. That I’d want to. “Vera, when you found the body you called
me
. Not the police. They generally frown on people who stumble across a murder and neglect to mention it.”

“I just delayed calling. We’re going to call.”

This was getting worse by the minute. “Sometimes once the police latch onto a suspect…” I started to say, then tried to figure out the nicest way to tell her. “I’ve done my fair share of shows about people who were wrongly convicted because once the police found the person who seemed like the killer, they stopped looking for anyone else.”

“I know I look guilty,” she conceded. “We have to figure something out. But not just because I look bad. It’s also because of Doug.”

The fact that she could be insulted at my assumption that Doug had set her up for murder and yet be convinced that he himself was a reasonable suspect in the crime was baffling to me. I told her as much.

“
I
don’t think he did it,” she protested. “I think the police will think he did it and I don’t want him to get in trouble. There’s got to be a way we can tell the police what happened that doesn’t make him look like he set me up for Erik’s murder. I just need you to help me figure out what that is.”

“That’s why you called me? To protect Doug?”

She didn’t answer. I looked at this gullible, silly, middle-aged woman who was more interested in protecting a man she barely knew than in protecting herself. I knew she’d been lonely these past few months, but is being alone really so bad?

Of course, I was the idiot who kept ordering shrimp fried rice for two at the China Palace.

D
id you touch anything?” I asked.

“Like what? I mean, I touched the doorknob and stuff like that.”

“Anything that wasn’t here earlier today?”

“No.”

“Because the police are going to find your fingerprints, but that’s okay. They can’t determine when you touched these things,” I said. “Since you have access to the restaurant, your fingerprints all over the crime scene don’t mean anything. Unless you touched something that wasn’t here before.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Think, Vera. Think carefully. I did a show once where this guy killed his roommate. They got into a fight over Wii bowling.” I stopped myself from giving the long version of the story and just tried to focus on the point. “Anyway, when he was first questioned, the killer said he’d left the apartment at four in the afternoon and had been out all night. When he got home the next morning, the police were already at the apartment; they’d already found his roommate dead. The killer’s fingerprints were all over the place, but why wouldn’t they be? He lived there.” I took a breath and tried to calm myself. “Only there was this pizza box. The roommate had ordered pizza at eight o’clock that night. The receipt was time-stamped and the restaurant could verify when the pizza was delivered. The killer’s prints were on the pizza box. If he hadn’t been there after four o’clock, then how did his fingerprints get on the box?”

“He was lying about it?”

“Yes, Vera. And he’s in prison for twenty-five years because he forgot he touched the damn pizza box,” I said. “So think. Did you touch anything that wasn’t here this afternoon? Anything that could have been delivered this evening? Or Erik’s blood. Or maybe the knives.”

“What knives?”

“I
noticed Walt left his knives in the kitchen. Have you ever touched them?”

She scratched at her neck, thinking. She started to pace. “Maybe. After the recipe tasting I helped Walt clean up.”

“Walt was with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then if one of those knives is the murder weapon and your print is on it, that’s how it got there.” I took a breath, tried to come up with a plan. “We’re going to my car. We’re going to call the police and give them more or less the true story. Your biggest problem is the time. But maybe we can fix that. We’re going to say you called me on your way to meet Doug because he sounded weird, and I was worried about you….”

“That’s nice of you to worry.”

I sighed. “I wasn’t actually worried, Vera. I’m just going to say I was worried and that’s why I came.”

“Why did you come if you weren’t worried about me?”

“Curiosity. Stupidity. I don’t really know.”

She smiled a little. “I’m sorry, Kate. I don’t mean to be so much trouble. It’s just that I knew I could count on you.”

“What did I ever do to give you that idea?”

The operator told us it would take the police nearly an hour to arrive. In a snowstorm, dead bodies don’t rate as high as nearly dead ones, and it seemed there were plenty of those—people whose cars had stalled on the highway, those with little or no heat who were using ovens to keep warm, and fools having heart attacks from trying to shovel their driveways as the snow pelted down and inches piled around us.

Vera and I were nearly two more victims of the storm, sitting in my car, alternating between bursts of heat and turning the engine off so as not to use up all the gas.

“Why don’t we just wait inside?” she asked after about forty minutes.

“Because it’s a crime scene. Besides, there’s no heat in there,” I said. “We’re better off here. At least we can occasionally get warm.”

“Maybe
we could see if any of the other places are open?” Vera pointed out the restaurants and bars that lined the street.

“Closed,” I said. In the best of weather, a lot of places in the South Loop close after dinner, when the businesspeople have all gone home. Tonight, it looked like every one of them had had the good sense to leave before the snow started falling.

She sat quiet for a moment. “Doug called me and said he was worried about something at the restaurant, and needed me to take a look.”

“But he didn’t tell you what?”

“No.”

“And he’s not answering his cell?”

She shook her head. “Do you think the killer went after Doug? Maybe he got to the restaurant just when Erik was being murdered. Maybe he saw the whole thing.”

“If Doug were dead, why wouldn’t the killer just leave his body next to Erik’s?”

“So you think he’s alive?” A small amount of relief crept into Vera’s voice.

“I think he’s the killer.”

Just as Vera was about to debate me, a squad car and a second car, a dark sedan, pulled up behind me. I watched as two patrol officers and two men in plain clothes got out of the cars and started for the restaurant.

“Remember, Vera,” I said, “you called me on your way to the restaurant. I came to meet you here. You were almost at the restaurant when you called. A block away at the most. You understand?”

“Why wouldn’t I have called you from home?”

“Vera. We have one chance to tell this story; that’s it. And what we say has to fit the facts. So tell me you understand.”

She nodded. “A block away. At most.”

“Let’s just go over this one more time,” I said. “You called me, parked your car, then waited in your car for a few minutes, looking for Doug’s car. When he didn’t arrive, you went to the restaurant, you went inside, waited in the dining room. Eventually, maybe ten or fifteen minutes after you called me, you walked in the kitchen looking
for Doug. You found Erik. You were scared, freaked out. You ran out of the restaurant, went to your car. Then I arrived. We went back into the restaurant and then called 911.”

“What if he asks me something I can’t answer?”

“Just say you were flustered, you don’t remember. Be upset. Be frightened.”

“I won’t have to fake that.”

“Good. Homicide detectives have pretty fine-tuned bullshit detectors, so stay as close to the truth as you can. The only thing you lie about is when you found the body.”

We got out of the car and headed toward the police.

“I’m Kate Conway,” I said to one of the patrol officers. “I called this in.”

One of the plainclothes officers walked toward me. “I’m Detective Makina,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“This is Vera Bingham.” I indicated Vera, who stood so close to me we were practically holding hands. “We found the body.”

“What were you ladies doing here tonight?”

“Vera got a call from her boyfriend, Doug Zieman. He asked her to meet him here, so she started to drive over, but then she got worried that something was off. She called me. I don’t like Doug, so I met her here just to make sure everything was okay.”

I could feel Vera pinch my hand, but I ignored it. I’d already decided if someone was going to be thrown under the bus it was going to be Doug. If he wanted to prove he was innocent then he could answer his damn phone.

“When I got here,” I continued, “Vera was hysterical. She’d found Erik Price lying dead. I checked for myself, just to be sure. I thought maybe he was just injured or something. But he was dead.” I took a breath and realized it was the first one I’d taken since I’d started my story. As I exhaled I watched my breath float toward Detective Makina’s face. “We came outside, called you guys, and waited in my car.” I was hoping it didn’t sound as rehearsed as it was.

The detective, balding, square-jawed, maybe sixty, looked at me. He waited, but I didn’t add to my story. He turned to Vera.

“
Either of you ever been in this place before?” he asked.

“Yes,” Vera said. “I’m an investor in the restaurant, and Kate is a TV producer doing a story on us. We’ve both been inside several times.”

He nodded. “And Doug Zieman?”

“He’s also an investor,” I said.

“And he’s missing,” Vera added.

Detective Makina raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been trying to reach him?”

Vera started to talk, so I grabbed her arm and twisted it a little. That shut her up. “He hasn’t shown up,” I said. “He was supposed to be here over an hour ago, and he’s not here.”