Murder One (13 page)

Jenkins followed him. “So why are you home?”

“The police came. She owns a thirty-eight revolver. It’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“She keeps it in a gun box in her closet. It isn’t there. They asked her to go with them for questioning.”

“You didn’t go with her?”

“She wouldn’t let me.” The sun had set, just a faint glow above the Olympic Mountain peaks. He heard Jenkins’s boots on the wooden porch behind him. Sloane didn’t turn from the view. “She didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?”

Sloane shrugged, turned from the view. Jenkins leaned against the door frame. “I just do,” Sloane said.

“Who, then?” Jenkins asked.

“I don’t know.” He felt the Scotch burn the back of his throat.

“You said you were tired of people threatening you; tired of people threatening the people you love,” Jenkins said, as if to explain.

“I am tired. Damn tired.”

Before Jenkins could respond, someone knocked on the front door.

T
HE
J
USTICE
C
ENTER
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

His adrenaline normally continued to pump long after an interrogation, but after an hour with Barclay Reid, Rowe left the room feeling
fatigued. It’d been a long day, and it would be an even longer next couple of days. He wondered if he was coming down with something, a flu or a cold. One of his kids had been sick earlier in the week, throwing up, a twenty-four-hour stomach thing.

Crosswhite and Cerrabone turned from the window as he walked in. Rowe shrugged, the universal gesture:
What do you think?

Crosswhite said, “We were just asking each other the same thing. I don’t know. Something’s not right. She’s too calm.”

Rowe slumped onto a plastic chair. “Maybe it’s like she said. Maybe she has nothing to hide.”

Crosswhite gave an emphatic shake of the head. “All the more reason to be concerned, Sparrow; most people would be shitting bricks sitting in that room, especially if they
didn’t
do it.”

“I don’t think she’s most people,” he said.

“Exactly. She knows the legal system.”

“You think that’s why she offered to take a polygraph?”

Reid had made the offer out of the blue. She said she wanted to get the matter resolved.

“She’s a lawyer,” Crosswhite said. “She probably knows it’s not admissible. It’s a hollow gesture.”

“Not if she fails.”

Crosswhite paced. “Something doesn’t add up, her reactions . . . She was flirting with you.”

Rowe scoffed. “She didn’t flirt with me.”

Crosswhite rolled her eyes. “Please. Every man in the world thinks every woman in the world is flirting with him. Now you have one who is, and you don’t recognize it?”

Rowe looked to Cerrabone. “What did you think?”

Cerrabone raised a hand. “I’ve been married so long I wouldn’t know flirting if a woman took off her top in front of me.”

“Yeah? That ever happen?” Rowe asked.

“Not when I was single, and definitely not since I’ve been married.”

Crosswhite’s voice rose. “Come on. She touched your forearm.” She softened her voice. “ ‘Is that a bird?’ What type of a question is that? She’s being questioned about a murder, and she’s acting like she’s having coffee at the local Starbucks.”

Rowe looked to the window. Reid had pushed her chair away from the table to cross her legs, the index finger and thumb of her right hand kneading the gold cross. As his gaze found the soft outline of her breasts, her head turned, as if she had sensed him, and despite the glass, she seemed to make eye contact.

“Sparrow?”

“Huh?”

“What do you think?” From her tone, he knew he’d missed the question.

“About what?”

“Let’s call her on it,” Cerrabone said. “Let’s have her take the polygraph. What, does she think she can beat it?”

“Can we get somebody now?” Rowe asked.

“Have her come back tomorrow,” Cerrabone said.

Rowe stood, pulled the keys from his pocket. “I’ll thank her for coming in, drive her home.”

Cerrabone said, “Have a patrol car take her home.” Rowe looked over at him. “In case she’s right,” he said, giving a nod to Crosswhite.

Crosswhite stood and stepped past him. “Forget it. I’ll let her know.”

T
HREE
T
REE
P
OINT
B
URIEN
, W
ASHINGTON

The front door of Sloane’s home faced SW 170th Place, but it was not visible from the street behind the laurel hedge, a freestanding single-car garage, and twenty feet of lawn. People who knew him used one of the two gates off the easement, which led to the porches outside the kitchen and the backyard. Only solicitors knocked on Sloane’s front door, but it was late, even for the most brazen and persistent. Sloane had a hunch whom he’d find even before he looked through the peephole.

Detectives Rowe and Crosswhite weren’t selling anything.

“Sorry to call on you so late,” Rowe said, though he didn’t sound like it. “May we come in?”

Sloane followed them into the living room, where Charles Jenkins stood as big and imposing as the darkened view out the plate-glass windows. Sloane introduced them.

“What can I help you with?” Sloane asked.

“We’d like to ask you a few things, get some time lines straight.”

“You’ve spoken to Barclay?”

“We’re just trying to corroborate a few things. Would you mind?”

Sloane knew they hadn’t made the drive to corroborate anything. “No, I don’t mind.”

They sat in the living room, Sloane on the leather sofa, Rowe and Crosswhite across the glass coffee table in two matching chairs. Jenkins remained standing.

Rowe started. “Could you tell us the nature of your relationship with Ms. Reid?”

“She’s a colleague and friend.”

“That friendship has been recent?”

“Yes, though we had a case against each other about a year ago.”

“But that did not develop into a relationship?”

“I was married at the time, Detective. My wife died about fourteen months ago. She was murdered. I haven’t been in any shape for a relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” Rowe said. “Was her murder ever resolved?”

Sloane had a sense Rowe knew it had not been, at least not as far as a police investigation would ever reveal. “How is this related to Barclay?”

“How well do you know Ms. Reid?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve spent the night at her home?”

“Is this relevant?”

“Were you with her last night? The night Mr. Vasiliev was killed?”

“No.”

“She indicated you spent Monday night together at her home.”

“That’s correct.”

Rowe flipped a page in his notebook. Sloane got the impression it was for show. “And it was the next day, Tuesday I believe, that she came to you with this idea of suing Mr. Vasiliev in a civil case?”

“That’s right. She wanted to sue him for the wrongful death of her daughter. I told her I wanted to speak to the U.S. attorney first and find out what information she had that could link Vasiliev to the drugs that killed Carly. Barclay set up the meeting.”

“And what chance of success did you give Ms. Reid’s case?”

“It hadn’t really gotten that far, Detective. I wanted to talk to the U.S. attorney first.”

Crosswhite asked, “Has a wrongful-death case against a suspected drug dealer ever been successful, to your knowledge?”

Sloane shrugged. “Again, everything was preliminary. Barclay was excited about the prospect; she thought it could help with her efforts to lobby the legislature to pass a drug dealer liability act.”

“Had Ms. Reid ever displayed any anger over her daughter’s death? Did she ever blame Vasiliev?”

In his head, Sloane saw the glass shatter, beer spraying, then the blood.

If I had known he was going to walk, I would have just put a bullet in him and been done with it
.

“Those are two separate questions.”

“Feel free to choose either one,” Rowe said.

“All right . . . As to whether she ever blamed Vasiliev, I’d have to assume she did, since she was in my office and wanted him held responsible. As to whether she ever expressed any anger, no, I don’t recall that she did.”

Rowe flipped backward through the pages of his notebook. As he did, Crosswhite jumped in. “So you saw Ms. Reid Tuesday morning . . . what time did you leave her home?”

“Around eight, I think.”

“And then you saw her again in your office at . . .”

“Noon.”

“Why didn’t she just talk to you about suing Vasiliev that morning?”

Sloane shrugged. “Ask her. We were both late getting to work. She said she wanted to do some research first . . . I would guess to see if it had ever been done.”

“Did she say what was the result of her research?”

“She’d found a case in California that appeared promising.”

“Did you have any further contact with her that day?” Rowe asked.

Sloane realized where Rowe was headed. He had called Reid that afternoon to tell her Vasiliev had threatened him. He also realized something else. He’d had access to Reid’s gun that morning. They had discussed it on the roof deck.

“I spoke to her on the phone late that afternoon, early evening,” Sloane said.

“Why did you call?” Rowe asked.

“I was concerned about her.”

“Why?”

“As I was leaving work that afternoon, Mr. Vasiliev sent two men to my garage to invite me to talk with him.”

“You mean they forced you.”

“They staged a car accident as I was backing out of my space.”

“Did they have weapons?”

“Both men were carrying guns.”

“And they brought you to meet Vasiliev? What did he want?”

“Mr. Vasiliev was concerned Barclay might file a civil suit against him.”

“He knew about it? How?”

“I don’t know how. But he knew.”

“So what did he say? What did he want?”

“He wanted me to convince Barclay it would be better if she let bygones be bygones.”

“And if she didn’t?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“No.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t report it.”

“My wife is dead, Detective. My stepson lives in California with his biological father and leaves for Italy tomorrow for three months.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Didn’t you feel threatened?”

“I told you, I took it as a threat.”

“But not enough to involve the police?”

“Vasiliev’s threat was
if
I filed the case. I hadn’t filed the case yet.”

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Sloane?”

This was where things could get tricky. The .38 that Jenkins had given Sloane was not registered. His possessing it could get them both in trouble.

“No, I don’t own one.”

“You were aware that Ms. Reid owned a gun.”

It wasn’t a question. “I saw the gun box in her closet with you and Detective Crosswhite.”

“Is that the first time you saw it?”

“No. I saw it Tuesday morning.”

“The day before Vasiliev was murdered.”

“Yes.”

“You talked to Ms. Reid about it.”

“I expressed surprise that she had it.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said she was a single woman on a crusade against drug dealers.”

“You said you saw the box. Did you see the gun in the box?”

“I didn’t open it.”

“Because there was a combination lock?”

“Because I didn’t think it would be appropriate to go through her things.”

“So you never actually saw the gun?”

“No.”

“You don’t know if it was in the box at that time or not.”

“I don’t.”

Rowe looked to Crosswhite, then back to Sloane. “Where were you this morning, by the way?”

TEN

T
HURSDAY,
S
EPTEMBER
8, 2011
I
NTERSTATE
F
IVE
B
URIEN
, W
ASHINGTON

T
he following morning, as he sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-5, inching his way toward downtown, Sloane reconsidered the second search warrant Rowe had handed him after he declined to voluntarily provide his fingerprints and a DNA sample.

Sloane’s cell phone rang. The number seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He recognized the voice: Ian Yamaguchi, the court reporter for the
Times
.

“Ian, this is not a good time. Can I call you back?”

“I was hoping to get a comment.”

“On what?”

“On the article we ran in this morning’s paper.”

T
HE
J
USTICE
C
ENTER
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

The amount of brass in the conference room could have made musical instruments for a marching band. Rowe and Crosswhite sat on one side of the table with their detective sergeant, Andrew Laub. Several copies of the
Seattle Times
lay scattered across the wood surface, the article of interest in the power position, top left-hand column. To say the article had come as a surprise would have been akin to saying the iceberg surprised the
Titanic
. Citing an anonymous source, Ian Yamaguchi had reported that two prominent Seattle
attorneys, Barclay Reid and David Sloane, had been questioned by police in the murder of Laurelhurst resident and suspected heroin dealer Filyp Vasiliev. The fallout had been like one of those phone trees on Little League teams where the first person who gets significant information calls the next person on the tree who in turn calls the person beneath and so on down the line. This tree started with the chief of police, Douglas “Sandy” Clarridge, ended with Rowe and Crosswhite, and included a whole lot of people in between.

“They directed us to their lawyers,” Laub said to the assembled in the conference room. “They’re calling it a confidential source.”

“Neither of you, I hope to God.” Clarridge directed the comment to Rowe and Crosswhite.

“Never spoken to the man,” Rowe said.