Murder 101 (14 page)

“No idea at all. She didn’t have that kind of money. Did . . . did she have an older man paying for these items? Is that who this Latham character is?”

“The Latham I’m investigating is in his thirties and appears too poor to afford those kinds of accessories. I’m not even sure what his relationship is to your daughter. He isn’t answering his phone, so I’d like to pay him a visit.”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Latham lives in the Boston area, which is about an hour and a half from Greenbury without traffic. If I go visit him, I might not make it back before you get here. Would you like me to wait for you? There are other things I could do in the meantime.”

“How important is this Latham?”

“I feel he’s very important. And there are things I need to do in Boston. We’re too small to handle the lab work. The captain wanted it done correctly, so Boston sent out a team.”

She cleared her throat, but her voice choked up. “Where is . . . the body?”

“In Boston.”

There was a long pause. “Shouldn’t we meet you in Boston? After all, you’re not certain that it’s her, right?”

“Karen, we can do the identification with a simple cheek swab.”

“But I want to say good-bye!” Anger in her voice. “I need to say good-bye!”

“Karen, please give it a few days. Then you can give her a proper burial.”

Her voice was a whisper. “You don’t want me to see the body.”

“It isn’t necessary to put you through that anguish. I’ll be back down by late afternoon. We’ll get a DNA profile. And I’ll tell you everything I know.” There was a long silence. “Karen, are you still with me?”

“Go to Boston, Detective. Don’t let us stop you from doing your job.”

“I’ll try to make it back as soon as I can.”

“We’ll wait. We’ll wait as long as it takes. As long as it takes for you to get back and as long as it takes to get some answers.”

CHAPTER 14

M
CADAMS SIPPED COFFEE
from a paper cup while staring out the passenger window. Decker was behind the wheel. It was in the high twenties outside, but the skies were clear. It made for easy driving even with arid heat blasting in their faces.

“Any specific reason why you asked me to come with you?” the kid said.

“Why do you think?”

“You know you always answer my questions with another question.”

“It’s effective in getting people to talk. So why did I ask you to come?”

“I’ve been mulling several options in my head.” He ticked them off. “I’m keeping you awake so you don’t fall asleep at the wheel, I can drive home in case you do get too sleepy, you want me close so I don’t fuck something up in your absence, or maybe, just
maybe,
I may actually be of some use to the investigation and you value my opinions.”

“Bang on the money, Harvard.”

“Admit it, Old Man. I’m growing on you.”

“Mea culpa.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of like lutefisk: strictly an acquired taste.” McAdams put the coffee cup in the holder and rubbed his hands together. “I could tell by your conversation with the mom that Angeline did stained glass. So that makes her a strong candidate for the Tiffany forgeries. The thefts must have something to do with her murder.”

“Maybe.”

“Are you just being cagey or is that a sincere maybe.”

“This is what I think. The thefts weren’t what caused her problems . . . it was you and me uncovering the thefts. Someone wanted to silence her. But do I really believe that someone would murder over a few Tiffany panels? Doubtful. We’re dealing with something bigger . . . no offense to Tiffany . . . or Clara Driscoll.”

“Who’s that?”

“Karen Bronson, Angeline’s mother, told me that Angeline like stained glass because Clara Driscoll, a woman who worked for Tiffany, actually made a lot of the designs.”

“Hold on, let me look her up.” McAdams took out his iPhone. “It may take a minute. I think we’re in a dead zone.” He looked up. “For the phone, I mean. My brain, that’s another story . . . what’s it going on without sleep? Like thirty hours? How do you think, let alone stay awake?”

“That’s why I brought you here, Harvard.”

“I’m a fancified alarm clock. Okay, here we go. Wikipedia at its finest.” McAdams paused while he read. “Clara Driscoll was indeed the head designer for Tiffany and worked there for twenty years. She chose the colors and the type of glass and designed some of his most famous lamps. Before her, the designs were more symmetrical and static. Her first design was the Daffodil, but she is also known for the Wisteria, the Dragonfly, and the Peony. She was given her just due when the New York Historical Society gave her an exhibition in 2006 entitled ‘A New Light on Tiffany.’ ”

“Angeline would have been about fourteen at that time,” Decker said. “That’s the age when she became interested in stained glass according to her mom. Maybe she saw the exhibition or read about it.”

“How would Angeline have heard about it if she was in Florida?” McAdams said.

“There’s a museum in Orlando that features lots of Tiffany. Damned if I can think of the name.”

“Morse Museum of American Art.”

“Yes! Exactly!” Decker turned to him. “Did you just look that up?”

“I’ve been there. My grandfather had a place in Bal Harbour.”

“I also keep you around because you have a memory.” Decker grinned. “Anyway, Karen Bronson told me that Angeline liked that Clara Driscoll because she appealed to Angeline’s ideas of talented, strong women and the arts.”

“Makes sense. Girls in college were always yakking about being strong and independent. God, it got so damn sophomoric. Just quit your bitching and actually
do
something.”

“I can see that patience isn’t your strong suit.”

“You’re right about that.” McAdams gave out a mirthless chuckle. “Most of my classmates at Harvard were living away from home for the first time. But there were some like me: boarding school since first grade with absentee parents. Granted we were privileged as far as education, money, and connections go. And yes, we were spoiled beyond the point of ridiculousness. But we were independent. The first timers . . . man, they were still attached to the umbilical cord. They had absolutely no concept of how utterly dependent they were on mommy and daddy. God, how I envied them.”

Decker was quiet.

McAdams said, “Don’t mind me. Go on.”

“Pour me more coffee. Just half full so I don’t burn my fingers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re allowed to call me Peter.”

“I prefer Old Man.”

“Am I like your real old man?”

McAdams shrugged. “Yes and no. He’s a prick in a bad way.” He handed Decker his coffee. “You’re a prick also, but in a good way.”

“You have a way with words. Can we get back to the case now?”

“Gladly.”

“Being that Clara Driscoll made the designs and Tiffany put his name on it, do you think that it might have mitigated Angeline’s conscience when she was making the forgeries?”

“Huh!” McAdams was quiet. “She was doing to Tiffany what he did to Driscoll. I like it. Not that it helps us understand why she was murdered, but there is a sort of
lex
talionis
to the whole thing. That means—”

“Eye for an eye, I know.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You were a lawyer. What kind of law again?”

“Estates and wills.” When McAdams started to snore, Decker said, “Exactly. You know eye for an eye doesn’t mean exacting retribution. It’s actually tort law.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because it’s in the section of the Bible that deals with property law. You injure a guy’s eye through negligence, you pay the victim for the value of what he would have earned with the eye versus what he makes because he’s missing an eye. Courts do that all the time. It’s called economic forensics.”

“Yeah, I know. I interned for several white shoe law firms in my college days courtesy of Daddy.” He took out his phone. “Where is the saying in the Bible?”

“Eye for an eye?”

“Yes.”

“It’s in Exodus . . . in the Hebrew section called Mishpatim if that helps.”

“Hold on . . . Exodus 21 paragraph 22 through 25 . . .” He read. “It doesn’t say anything about monetary compensation.”

“It’s in the commentary from Rashi. He was a great, eleventh-century—”

“I know who Rashi is. I took Moderation and Extremism at Harvard—Twersky’s class—although he was dead by the time I took it. But people still refer to it as Twersky’s course. The point is why should I believe some guy’s commentary? Just go with the text.”

“Law is always about interpretation. Nothing is ever face value. And the background of the biblical section deals more with torts than with capital cases.”

“Aren’t you the hotshot, biblical scholar?”

“This is pretty rudimentary, Tyler, but if you’re impressed, I’m fine with that.”

McAdams was still reading text. “The sections deal with tort law as well as capital cases. It’s all mixed together.”

“Traditionalists go by rabbinic law because the sages can interpret Jewish law better than the layman.”

“You need a learned mind,” McAdams said.

“Exactly.”

The kid grinned. “Or a Learned Hand.”

Decker groaned at the pun. “You were setting me up for that one, weren’t you.”

“I was.”

“Clever, but awful!”

“It wasn’t awful!” McAdams sniffed. “It was just . . . Harvard.”

THE RURAL NORTHEAST
was white and stark, giving the region an aesthetic minimalism. Urban Northeast was gray and depressing. Grime mixed with snow equaled sludge, and the old factories and crumbling brick warehouses were bereft of any kind of beauty. The only saving grace today was the bright sunshine and the clear skies, which only served to highlight the sprawl. According to the GPS, Decker was only a mile from Latham’s address. He said, “Are we near the university?”

“I take it you mean Tufts. We’re not far in distance, but worlds away socioeconomically. If Latham was doing something illegal, it wasn’t paying him big dividends.”

“Or he chose the area because petty criminal activity might go unnoticed.”

“That’s certainly possible.”

“Or Latham was a poor grad student who was strapped. Or he was just cheap.” Decker pulled up to the apartment building and killed the motor. “Hopefully, we shall find out something about the lad.” He clicked open the glove compartment and took out his gun.

McAdams said, “I don’t think you’ll need that in the daytime.”

Decker strapped it into his harness. “I’m not leaving a loaded Beretta in the car.”

“Why’d you bring a piece? I mean, do you routinely carry it in Greenbury?”

“No. Don’t need it there. But here we don’t know what we’re dealing with so I like to err on the overcautious side.” Decker opened the door. “Let’s go.”

“I’m with you, partner.”

Together, they walked up to the apartment building—an old square made of bricks and stucco. In a perfect world, the glass front door was locked for security. But the hasp appeared to be broken so they slipped inside, walking up a flight of stairs, down the hallway until they found Latham’s unit. Decker knocked on the door. After a few minutes of futile banging, Decker gave up.

“What now?” McAdams asked.

“We leave a card, then we drive over to the morgue and see if they’ve started Angeline’s autopsy. I’d like to get a blood sample for DNA. See if we can get a match from her toothbrush. If that doesn’t work, we’ll do a match with Mom. Anything’s better than a visual identity. No parent should have to see a son or a daughter in that condition.”

“Don’t you need both parents for a profile match?”

“The lab can do a mitochondrial match. Unless there are other sisters missing, it’s good enough for an ID.” Decker took out his card and stuck it into the doorway. As he turned to leave, a neighbor came out. She lived two doors down and was wearing a housecoat. She was dark complexioned with gray hair: midsixties to early seventies.

“Finally!”

“Excuse me?” Decker said.

“You’re the police, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, it took you long enough to come down.”

Decker smoothed his mustache. Then he took out a notebook. “When did you call?”

“Around ten last night. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Remind me of the complaint. I just got a notice to come down and talk to the man in this unit . . . I believe his name is John Latham.”

“It’s John. I don’t know his last name. He wasn’t very friendly.”

“Okay,” Decker said. “And you are . . .”

“Inez Camero.”

“How long have you lived in the building?”

“Ten years.”

“How long has John been here?”

“Under a year. And like I said, he’s not very friendly. But at least he was quiet . . . until last night. Music was blasting so loud, my other ear nearly went deaf. You could have probably heard it in Cambridge.”

“It was blasting all last night?”

“It started around nine-thirty. I know because my favorite show,
Real Estate Buddies,
was on the television. I had my tea, I had my biscotti, all set to enjoy a nice quiet evening, but nooooo. I called the police at ten during the commercial break. When nothing happened, I finally went over myself and banged on the door. That musta been around ten-thirty right after my show. Leslie Avila saw me. She was getting ready to do the same thing. Finally the jerk turned down the volume.”

“Inconsiderate neighbors can be a real problem,” Decker said.

“What’s a real problem is an apathetic police department. What good are you if I have to do it myself because you don’t show up until the next morning?”

Decker nodded. “I understand your frustration.”

“Sure you do.” Inez was actively glaring by this time. “Sorry to have disturbed you. I’m sure you have important stuff to deal with like where to get your doughnuts.” With her parting shot, Inez marched back into her apartment and slammed the door.

McAdams said, “She wasn’t very nice.”

“She’s frustrated.” Decker swirled his tongue inside his cheek and thought a moment. He squatted down and sniffed underneath the door. While he was down there, he saw the tip of a small white card. With deft hands, he pulled it out and read. “Officer James Marx.”

“The police did come out.”

“Apparently.” Decker stood up and turned it around to the back side. “No time on the card. Maybe when Marx showed up, the music had stopped.” He handed McAdams the card. “Give him a call. Find out when he came out.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” Decker bit his lower lip. “Someone was here last night inside Latham’s apartment because someone turned down the music. But the card was still there under the door in the morning.”

“Maybe he didn’t see it when he left the apart— Uh, hello, can I talk to Officer James Marx, please?”

“Identify yourself first, Tyler.”

“Right.”

Decker dropped to a squat, once again sniffing under the door.

McAdams said, “Could you please have him call Detective Tyler McAdams of the Greenbury Police Department. We’re in the area investigating a crime that occurred south of here. I’ll give you my cell number.”

Decker stood up. “I definitely smell something.”

“Like what?” Tyler stowed his cell in his pocket. “Decay?”

“More metallic—like blood.”

McAdams started to bend down. Decker pulled him up by his collar before his hands and knees touched the ground. “If there was a murder, everything on the floor is possible forensic evidence—”

“I know. Don’t kneel, squat. My quads leave something to be desired.”

Decker pointed to the floor. “Go on. Take a whiff.”

The kid complied. “Yeah, it does smell a little funky in there. Can you help me up?”

“You’ve
got
to be kidding!”

McAdams took in a deep breath and managed to hoist himself back up on his feet. “If I get a leg cramp, can I apply for workman’s comp?” When Decker didn’t answer, he said, “I’m just trying to add a little levity in an otherwise grave situation . . . no pun intended.”