Murder One (9 page)

Han gestured to seven Bekins boxes lining a wall. “Filyp Vasiliev. I’ve spent more time with him the past six months than my husband.”

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”

“You’ve met him?” Han asked.

“Unfortunately,” Sloane said.

“I felt like showering every time I got within five feet of the man.” Han adjusted a headband. She had a small mole just above her right eyebrow. “So . . . wrongful death, huh?” She sounded skeptical.

“Maybe. Just looking into it at this point.”

“I wish you didn’t have to. Kozlowski’s ruling was flat-out wrong.”

“Will you appeal?”

“They’re still kicking it around upstairs, but I don’t think they’ll pull the trigger.”

“Why not, if the ruling was wrong?”

“We’ve spent a lot of money already and without a guarantee that we’ll get it reversed . . .” She sighed. “I wanted to challenge him, but we don’t like to do that, either. It sets a bad precedent.”

A challenge allowed an attorney to ask a judge to recuse himself from a case for any number of reasons, but often because the attorney didn’t think the judge could be impartial. It was not an accusation to be made lightly, especially by a member of the Justice Department against a federal district court judge. For Han to suggest she had considered it piqued Sloane’s interest.

“On what grounds?”

“It’s pretty widely accepted in the office that Kozlowski’s had a thing against women attorneys since his divorce. Frankly, I thought it was BS, but he’s been a burr in my ass for the past year.”

“But not exactly a good reason for a challenge,” Sloane said with a smile.

“Not exactly. Whatever the reason, he isn’t doing wonders for my career. But this one I know I did by the book.”

“So what happened?”

Han explained the months-long investigation. “The DEA had been after Vasiliev for a while. Then they came to us to get wiretaps.”

“Let me guess,” Sloane said, though his recollection of criminal law was fuzzy. “Kozlowski ruled there was no probable cause for the initial decision to search the trunk of the car.”

“Vasiliev’s lawyer argued that because the driver had a thick eastern European accent, the police officer had racially profiled him.”

“You’re kidding.”

“The joke in law enforcement is if you say the words ‘Russian mafia,’ it’s redundant. Kozlowski ruled the heroin inadmissible, and since the wiretaps were obtained as a result of the heroin . . .”

“Tainted fruit,” Sloane said, recalling that any evidence uncovered as a result of the original misconduct was considered tainted and subject to being excluded.

“I don’t have a problem with him finding no probable cause for
the initial search but I do have a problem with him linking that to evidence subsequently uncovered through an operation done by the book. Are you hiring? I might need a job.”

Sloane knew Han to be joking, though at the moment there wasn’t much humor in her voice. “Barclay said you could help with the chain of distribution.”

“Maybe. Our case against Vasiliev was for drug distribution. Barclay and the U.S. attorney are acquainted. She wanted us to go after Vasiliev for supplying
the drugs
that killed her daughter. Given who she is in the legal community, I was told to try. But without first getting a conviction for distribution, that couldn’t happen.”

“So you don’t have much on the organization.”

“Vasiliev didn’t keep the drug records with his business records, and likely for just that reason—in case he ever got raided. He probably kept them at his home or someplace else. If we could find where the money goes, what offshore accounts, we might be able to trace it to determine who is ultimately profiting.”

Han looked at the clock on the wall and walked around the desk to shake his hand. “I have to cover a hearing. Listen, I’ll help any way I can. If I get the word we’re not going to appeal, I’ll send you what I have.” She slipped into a blue jacket that matched her skirt and adjusted her hair over the collar. “I’d like to see
someone
wipe the smile off Vasiliev’s face.”

A female voice called out over the speakerphone on Han’s desk advising that she had a call from Jeff Behrman.

“Put him through.” Han spoke to Sloane. “He was the lead DEA agent on Vasiliev. If you think I’m pissed, you ought to talk to him.”

Han picked up the receiver. “Were your ears burning?” She didn’t say much after that. When she did, it was brief. “You’re kidding. When? Okay. Call me back when you know more.” She hung up.

“More bad news?” Sloane asked.

“Depends on your perspective; I don’t have to worry about confidentiality anymore. I can give you the whole file.”

“No appeal?”

“No need. I don’t have a case. But neither do you. I’ve heard you’re good, but I don’t think even you can sue a dead man.”

L
AURELHURST
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Search warrant in hand, Rowe and Crosswhite donned blue nitrile gloves and booties to walk the house with Kathy Stafford, the lead CSI detective. Because of the breadth of the subpoena, CSI made a call to the latent’s unit at the Washington State Patrol crime lab and asked that it send out civilian fingerprint analysts to assist with the process.

Passing through a room with a vaulted twenty-foot ceiling, thick white rug, and leather furniture, Rowe considered a large painting of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square hanging above a river-rock fireplace. “Who said crime doesn’t pay?”

“The guy in the other room with a bullet in his head,” Crosswhite said.

Upon entering the back room, Stafford noted the single hole in the sliding-glass door, calling it a defect. They were trained not to say “bullet hole,” as it could be considered a conclusion that a good defense attorney might later try to exploit.

A fireman on scene took two seconds to confirm Vasiliev dead, which was also standard procedure, even though the “defect” had blown away half his skull. Rowe deduced a large-caliber weapon, a .38 or a .45. Given the damage to the front of Vasiliev’s skull, and because the bullet had to pass through the double-paned glass, he doubted the shooter had used a hollow point, which was designed to peel open upon impact to maximize damage and usually stayed inside the body. Rowe expected to find something like ball ammunition.

“I’m guessing it’s around here somewhere,” Rowe said, meaning the bullet. “What do you think about getting Barry out here?” he asked Crosswhite. With the forensic evidence looking more and more likely to be thin, he figured they could use all the help they could get, and Barry Dilliard was as good as it got. The supervising forensic scientist for the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, Dilliard was generally considered the guru on everything to do with firearms.

“Can’t hurt,” Crosswhite said.

“What about the tracker?” he asked.

After finding footprints in the lawn, Crosswhite had suggested they
call for Kaylee Wright, a man-tracker with the King County sheriff’s office special operations unit. Crosswight had used Wright on another investigation and said she could evaluate shoe prints and broken vegetation to determine the number of people at a crime scene, where they stepped, and whether they were running or walking.

“On her way.”

“Can she put her ear to the ground and hear the buffalo, too?”

Crosswhite rolled her eyes. “Nice, Sparrow. You’ll like her. She’s your type. She breathes.”

“Funny.” He considered his watch. “My type is at home asleep or cooking breakfast for three boys.”

They agreed CSI should roll up and take the Persian rug, along with the sofa. Though the killer had shot from outside, it was possible he and Vasiliev were acquainted. If so, the shooter might have been inside Vasiliev’s home at some earlier time and left behind a print or a DNA sample they could match to a weapon, were they ever to find one.

It would take CSI nearly an hour to photograph the house and the backyard, after which the fingerprint experts would go to work on the interior. Two detectives worked on the crime-scene sketch.

In the backyard Crosswhite introduced Rowe to Kaylee Wright, an athletically built woman who stared out across the lawn toward the lake. Except for the auburn hair and dark complexion, she and Cross-white looked like they could be related.

“What do you need to get started?” Rowe asked.

“Nothing,” Wright said. “I’ll do a cut around the house for footprints.”

“We had two patrol officers . . . dispatch reported a prowler. They walked the house trying to gain access.”

“I’ll need to talk to them and eliminate their boots. They look like Danner,” she said, referring to the boot preferred by patrol officers.

“We also had a lot of rain last night,” Rowe said.

Wright shrugged. “It’s the Northwest. This is typical for me.”

They left Wright alone when Stafford advised they had found the bullet wedged in a piece of hardwood molding at the base of a wall. Though the bullet was distorted, Rowe’s hunch had been right—a .38 ball round.

When Rowe returned to the backyard half an hour later, the lawn looked as though a greenkeeper at a miniature-golf course had gone berserk with tiny red and yellow flags.

Wright provided her initial impression. “There are three distinct sets of prints. They lead from the water to the patio and back to the water.”

“So three people came?”

“Can’t say.” She led him to a narrow strip of beach and pointed out a lone print in the sand on the far right of the property. “See how the ball of the print is deeper than the heel? The person pressed down and vaulted onto the bulkhead.” She pointed to a straight line of yellow flags leading to the concrete patio.

“The person who made this print also made those prints,” she said. She walked him up the yard to the patio, then pointed out sand and dirt granules. “The person stood here.” Wright turned and pointed toward the water. “See the red flags?” The red flags delineated a path from the patio to the water, though it veered to the left into a thicket of trees. “The same person started for the water, diverted to the trees, then continued on to the water. What time did you say dispatch got a call of a prowler?”

“Right around three,” Rowe said.

Wright nodded. “These prints were made within that time period.”

“How close can you get?”

“Within four hours.”

“And those flags over there?” Rowe pointed to yellow and red flags on the left side of the lawn.

Wright ran him through the same analysis, starting with multiple shoe prints on the beach. “They also came out of the water and moved up the lawn quickly.” The prints were bigger, size 10½ and 12.

“Could one of them have been the shooter?”

“That’s not my area of expertise. That’s for Barry. They left, running. As they approached the bulkhead, they slowed to climb down the wall. The footprints in the sand are twisted in different directions.” She used her hand to demonstrate.

Rowe considered it. “If someone had a boat, they’d jump down,
turn around—maybe while untying a rope—and jump into the boat.” He pointed across the property to the flag for the lone print. “So what the hell was that person doing way over there?”

“Don’t know, but that person got to the patio first.”

“I thought you could only limit the time to within four hours.”

Wright led him to a spot containing both a red and a yellow flag. “See how some of the blades of grass in the smaller impression are lying flat in the direction of the concrete patio? That’s the person walking to the back of the house. Now, see how some of the blades of the larger print are lying over the top of those diagonally? That tells me they were made after the smaller print . . . but by how much, I can’t tell you.”

C
OLUMBIA
C
ENTER
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Sloane stepped from the elevator onto the fifty-fourth floor, wiping sweat from his temples. He asked the receptionist for Barclay Reid’s assistant, Nina Terry. His calls to Reid’s cell phone had gone immediately to voice mail. When he called the office, Terry said Reid was in a morning meeting. She reiterated that information when she met Sloane in the reception area but said they were finishing up.

“I’ll wait,” he said.

Terry led him to an interior conference room without windows and brought him coffee. Ten minutes passed before the door pushed open and Reid entered with an uncertain smile. “David?”

“I’m sorry to take you from your meeting.”

“Is everything okay? Nina said you called.”

“I just came from Rebecca Han’s office.”

Reid’s shoulders sagged. “She won’t help?”

“No, that’s not it. While I was there, she got a call from her chief investigator on the Vasiliev matter.” He paused. “Vasiliev is dead, Barclay. Someone shot him last night.” Reid did not immediately react. Then she pulled out a chair and sat, eyes focused on the tabletop. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel.” She looked up at him.
“I’m not going to lie . . . part of me is glad he’s dead. But part of me feels like he just cheated me all over again.”

“Do you want to get a cup of coffee, take some time?”

She shook her head. “I have meetings this morning and this afternoon . . .”

“You could reschedule—”

She cut him off. “No. I’m not going to let him affect my life any more than he already has. Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it.”

“Anything I can do?”

She seemed to give it some thought, shook her head, and left without another word.

L
AURELHURST
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Rowe and Crosswhite locked down the crime scene and posted two uniformed officers, one at the front and one at the rear of the house. Throughout the day, the neighbors had gathered behind the police tape, along with the media and the curious, who always seemed to find their way to a crime scene. That number would only increase as word spread. A murder in upscale Laurelhurst would be a top news story, especially if the victim had been a suspected heroin-dealing businessman living among them.