Murder One (17 page)

He shouted her name and waved, drawing her attention. Then he gave a few final, powerful strokes to beach the kayak in the sand and pebbles. He stepped out into ankle-deep water, grabbed the tie line at the front of the skiff, and pulled it farther up the beach.

“How did you find me?”

“Carolyn said you had gone home early. She gave me directions.”

“Decided to get some exercise,” he said, pulling his bib overhead, which stretched over the opening of the kayak to keep water out. He threw it and the paddles inside the hull.

Reid looked out across the sound. “It’s beautiful. Now I know what you meant about living on the water.” She tilted her chin and smiled up at him. “I’ve been afraid to call.”

He nodded. “I was concerned about the police, about how it might look.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She looked again at the view. A tear trickled from beneath her sunglasses. “I’m sorry I got you involved in this, David. It never should have been your problem. I never should have asked you to take the civil case. It was wrong of me.”

“I appreciate that,” he said. “But I’m a big boy.”

“I took a lie-detector test this morning.”

The news alarmed him. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“I wanted to. I don’t want there to be any doubt.”

“Do you think it will convince them?”

She removed the sunglasses. “I’m not worried about convincing them.”

“I don’t have any doubt, Barclay.”

She took a deep breath, cleared her throat. “Thank you. But right now this isn’t fair to you, not after what happened to your wife . . .” Another tear pooled and trickled, like a slow leak. “That’s why I came out here . . . to find you . . . to tell you that I’m not going to see you anymore—not until this is over. Not until it gets resolved, and then only if you still want to.”

He stepped forward, took her hand that was not holding the shoe straps. Her nylons had run railroad tracks up her shins and calves. “It is resolved,” he said. “For me, it’s resolved.”

He bent to kiss her, a movement she only momentarily resisted.

S
ECOND
A
VENUE
W
EST
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Crosswhite slid into the passenger seat. When the driver’s-side door didn’t open, she turned and looked out the back window. Rowe stood a couple of strides down the sidewalk, near the rear bumper, hands on his hips, facing north. She got out of the car and walked around the back, considering the direction of his gaze, seeing nothing but parked cars, buildings, and trees on the sidewalk.

“What is it?”

He tilted his head a bit, not really looking at her. “What the Sam Hill is going on?”

“Sam Hill?”

“We got a suspect who passed a lie-detector test, another who logic dictates wasn’t there, footprints that lead to nowhere, and the fingerprint of a DEA agent who, agency records indicate, retired twenty years ago.”

Lucas Finley had indeed received a call from the home office, but the information had done little to clear up the mystery of Julio Cruz. If anything, it deepened it. According to personnel, Cruz had been a DEA agent in the Florida field office, working mostly in Miami before retiring in the late 1990s. His last known address, the one where his retirement pension was mailed each month, was a P.O. box in Miami. His last known phone number had been disconnected. They had no idea where he was, which meant they couldn’t rule out Seattle.

Birds chirped in the trees. “Maybe we got a rogue agent who got a taste of the money and decided he liked it,” Crosswhite said.

“So he comes all the way across the United States to work with Vasiliev? What, he can’t find any drugs coming into the country in Miami?”

“Just thinking out loud.” She squinted against the bright sun. Her sunglasses remained on the dashboard. “Finley said he would look into it.”

Rowe pointed down the street, and though he wore wraparound sunglasses, she realized he wasn’t pointing at anything there. He was seeing the green lawn behind Vasiliev’s house, leading to the concrete patio and the sliding-glass door.

“We got two sets of footprints running up the left side of the lawn to Vasiliev’s back door, then running back to the water, likely to a boat. If it was this guy Cruz, and we have to assume latents didn’t fabricate his print out of thin air, he wasn’t there by chance.”

“Or alone.”

He glanced at her. “Or alone.”

“Vasiliev was under surveillance,” she said.

“Seems the logical conclusion, doesn’t it? What other explanation is there?”

This time she sensed he wanted her to play devil’s advocate. “Okay. Maybe this guy Cruz and the second guy were working with the shooter. They drop the person into the water, and the person
swims to shore, pops Vasiliev. Once he’s done, they drive the boat in, check the handiwork, and . . .” She stopped her train of thought.

“Except we know the shooter detoured to the bushes and, thanks to Freddy, left swimming in the opposite direction,” Rowe said, verbalizing the problem with her theory. “It doesn’t fit, which brings us full circle to Sam Hill.”

“Never heard of him.” That got a tiny smile. “Finley says they didn’t have Vasiliev under surveillance. Why would he lie?”

“Maybe he isn’t.”

“It was a Seattle operation. How could he not have known?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a Seattle operation. His office had the evidence they needed and put it in the U.S. attorney’s hands.” He turned his head to her. “Remember the weather the morning Vasiliev was killed?”

“Thunderstorms.”

“So let’s say someone has Vasiliev under surveillance, for whatever reason. Where would be a good place to keep an eye on the house?”

“Given all the windows, the side facing the water,” she said.

“I agree. So they’re watching from a boat, only they can’t really see or hear too clearly because of the storm. They hear a noise, sounds like thunder. When they look, they see him slumped over on the sofa. Now they’re moving quickly to the shore, up to the patio. He’s dead. Nothing they can do about it.”

“Why call it in?”

“That’s where I’m going. How many times have we asked neighbors if they heard gunshots and gotten a positive response?”

“Only in the city,” she said, where the houses were close, sometimes side by side.

“Right. And who would know that most gunshots go unreported until the victim is found?”

“Someone in law enforcement.”

“And who else but law enforcement and criminals would think to have an untraceable phone?”

“So where are you going with this?”

“I don’t know.”

“So let’s focus on the print. How does it get on the door?” she asked.

“It’s instinct. Remember, Adderley said he could hardly remember exactly what he did because his heart was pumping so fast. Maybe Cruz can’t stop himself in time and touches the door.”

“Okay, so how does the shooter play in to all of this?”

“I’m not sure he or she does. We saw all three as working together, but maybe not. Maybe the shooter got there thinking she would kill Vasiliev and swim off. She picked the night because of the storm, and everything is going according to plan until she hears a boat engine approaching, so she hides in the bushes and waits until they leave.”

“Except Reid passed the test,” Crosswhite said. “She passed the polygraph.”

He smiled. “But not the Crosswhite test. And you had what, fifteen years to evaluate every possible lie a high school kid could conjure up.”

“Doesn’t matter if we can’t break her alibi, put her at the scene.”

“I know.” Rowe removed his sunglasses, squinting as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“It’s good, Sparrow,” she assured him. “It makes sense. It’s progress. Let’s get something to eat and some caffeine. We’ll go back and digest everything we have and go over it again. Maybe latents will have processed Sloane’s fingerprints and Wright will have good news on the shoe prints. Then we go to work on finding the other suspect.”

He nodded and turned for the car, stopped. “What other suspect?”

“Sam Hill,” she said.

T
HREE
T
REE
P
OINT
B
URIEN
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ASHINGTON

They made love with the windows open, feeling the light breeze and hearing the sound of waves lapping on the shore. Afterward, they lay atop the rumpled sheets, sweat glistening. Tendrils of light streamed through the two skylights, which had been the extent of Sloane’s architectural contribution when he and Tina bought the home and set to remodeling it. He wanted to be able to lie in bed at night and look
up at the stars, like he had as a kid when one of the foster families gave him a room in the attic with a window.

Barclay lay beside him trying to catch her breath. She gave an audible moan with each exhale. “I hope your neighbors aren’t home,” she said, making him laugh. She sat up and put her feet on the floor, arching her back, pulling air into her lungs. “I need a glass of water.”

“I’ll get it,” he said.

She reached back and put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “You’ve done enough. Just point me in the direction.”

Sloane stretched out a lazy arm toward the stairs. “Kitchen, left cupboard as you face the sink.”

She kissed him passionately. “I’ll get two,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe for now, but after what I have in store for you, you might very well be dehydrated.”

She rolled off the bed, standing, seemingly not the least bit bashful about her nakedness. She had the body of a dancer, with sinewy muscles and no detectable fat. “I’ll need to borrow a bathrobe,” she said, “unless you want the neighbors to see me as well as hear me.”

“Back of the bathroom door,” he said.

She emerged, rolling up the sleeves of his navy blue terry-cloth robe that fell to her ankles. Sloane had given Tina’s clothes to Goodwill.

“I liked the show better before you drew the curtain,” he said.

She turned at the doorway with an impish grin. “Really? Well, the next screening will be . . . downstairs.” She dropped the robe and took off running.

TWELVE

L
AURELHURST
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

T
hey would not get the caffeine they needed or the food they craved, but Rowe didn’t care, and he knew Crosswhite didn’t, either. Though neither would say it aloud, like baseball players sitting silent in a dugout for fear of jinxing a pitcher in the midst of throwing a no-hitter, each was optimistic this could be the break they needed, the break every investigation needed.

Andrew Laub had called as Rowe maneuvered through afternoon traffic on their return to the Justice Center. A woman in Laurelhurst had called and asked to speak to the detectives in charge of the murder investigation—“the one in Laurelhurst,” was how she put it. She said she might have some information; she didn’t know, so she was calling. They had received dozens of tips, but this lady, Laub said, had been modest and quiet, like maybe she really did know something.

Rowe and Crosswhite would find out soon enough.

Mary Beth Blume answered a cathedral wood-and-lead-glass door. She appeared too small and demure to be living in such a grand expanse of overindulgence, but her demeanor fit Laub’s description of her voice on the phone—“tentative.” Dressed in a pair of designer jeans, a V-neck cashmere sweater over a white T-shirt, and gold-colored slippers, the kind with a rubber tread, Blume briefly considered their badges, seeming much more interested in the unmarked blue Impala parked in the street.

“Is it okay there?” Crosswhite asked. “Would you like us to move it?”

“No . . . it’s fine,” she said, letting them in and closing the door.

Rowe deduced it would not have been fine had it been an actual police cruiser, visible to all the neighbors and likely to be the subject of interest and subsequent questions.

Blume had straw-colored hair that curved just below her chin and looked to have been recently brushed. “My husband is on his way home,” she said, seeming uncertain what to do next. “He thought he should be here.”

“That’s fine,” Rowe said, trying to maintain an air of calm. “We’re in no hurry.” He looked about, hoping it might spur Blume to invite them to sit down. His hip burned.

“You have a beautiful home,” Crosswhite said.

That could have been the understatement of the year. The entryway was bigger than Rowe’s master bedroom and bathroom combined, with black and white marble floor tiles, gold-leaf mirrors on wallpapered walls, and an elaborate chandelier hanging from a domed ceiling above a newel-post staircase that curved down from the upper floor.

Blume stopped fidgeting with her hands long enough to point to an adjacent room. “We can wait in the living room.” She stepped down into a sunken room mostly champagne-colored but for a black baby-grand piano near a bay window that provided a view of the manicured front yard.

“Do you play?” Crosswhite asked, moving toward the keys.

Rowe knew his partner hoped to relax Blume by talking about a comfortable subject. The poor woman looked as though she might throw up at any moment, which, in a perverse way, made Rowe optimistic she might have some information of value.

“Not too much anymore,” Blume said. Then, as if to explain, “My mother thought it was important for me to learn an instrument. But I haven’t had much time lately. We’ve been in the middle of a remodel.”

Of course they were, Rowe thought. A three-to-four-million-dollar home clearly needed a face-lift to make it presentable.

“Sounds like we had similar mothers,” Crosswhite said.

“You play?” Rowe asked.

She gave him the eye roll. “Twelve years.”

“My son plays,” Blume added. “Though now he mostly plays his guitar. He’s in a band.”

Rowe heard regret in the woman’s voice. The purr of a car engine drew his attention to the bay window as a canary-yellow convertible Porsche pulled up the driveway and parked in front of one of the four garage bays. The personalized license plate read blume. The only thing missing now was the golden retriever or yellow Lab.