No One Left to Tell (6 page)

He was quiet for a long moment, which said a great deal. ‘I haven’t lived in Baltimore all that long. I know cops I’d trust with my life, but they’re elsewhere. Here in Baltimore I may know one. But I’m not sure.’

‘Then we say nothing.’ Paige disconnected the old laptop, put it in the safe bolted into her china cabinet. She heard Elena’s voice again.
Cops. Chasing me
. With a sigh she shoved the bag in, too.

She’d no sooner locked the safe and closed the cabinet doors when there was a sharp knock on her front door. Peabody came to his feet, a low growl in his throat and Paige and Clay exchanged a quick look. ‘Who is it?’ she called out.

‘Baltimore PD.’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘We’d like to speak with you. Please.’

Peabody at her side, Paige cracked the door open, leaving the chain in place. On her doorstep stood a man and a woman, both wearing suits.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m Detective Morton and this is my partner, Detective Bashears. We’d like to talk to you about what happened this morning.’

Morton?
The same cop who’d arrested Ramon.
Shit
.

It took an effort to keep her face blank and she could only hope she pulled it off. There were only so many detectives in Baltimore’s homicide department, but this was still too much coincidence. ‘I told the other detective everything that I know.’

Morton attempted a smile. ‘This case has been reassigned to my partner and me.’

Paige leaned against the doorframe, genuinely weary. ‘Fine.’ She closed the door and turned to Clay, who looked as unhappy as she felt. ‘What next?’ she mouthed.

He pointed to himself, then to her bedroom. ‘Tell them nothing,’ he mouthed back. With that, he disappeared into her bedroom, his step soundless.

Tuesday, April 5, 7.45
A.M
.

‘Grayson, Anderson’s looking for you.’ Assistant State’s Attorney Daphne Montgomery held up a note scrawled in their boss’s hand as Grayson rushed past her cubicle. ‘He’s growly. You should call him before he has a stroke.’

His boss was always growly, Grayson thought. Besides, he knew exactly what Anderson wanted and would be damned before he gave it to him. Anderson could wait.

He stuffed the note into his pocket, eyeing the plate of muffins on Daphne’s desk. ‘How did you get here so early? Took me forever to get through security.’

The line had reached around the corner and people were understandably scared, despite another report from Phin Radcliffe, who, Grayson hated to admit, had gotten a decent handle on the situation as a whole. Radcliffe had revealed the woman’s association to a convicted murderer without giving her name and had posited that, given she’d been shot before arriving at the scene, she was not a victim of a random sniper attack.

Still, people were on edge.
So am I
. He couldn’t get the picture of Elena Muñoz’s face out of his mind. He needed information, and he needed it now.

‘I got here at six,’ Daphne said. ‘I was expecting a call from Ford.’

Grayson had turned toward his office, but stopped at the worry in her voice. Daphne’s son Ford was on a college spring break trip to Europe. ‘Is he okay?’

She nodded and Grayson relaxed. ‘He’s enjoying the hell out of Italy,’ she said.

‘Good. I thought something was wrong. You don’t sound like yourself.’

She hesitated. ‘When Ford called, he was scared. He’d already heard about the sniper attack. He was worried because he knew I sometimes take that route to work.’

Grayson blinked. ‘He’d already heard about it? In Europe?’

‘One of his friends posted it on Twitter. There were already videos online. One of them shows the victim’s face as she’s being shot.’ Her voice trembled. ‘The bastard who took the video gave her name, too. Before her family was notified. It was Elena Muñoz.’ She met his eyes and sighed. ‘You already know all this?’

‘Yeah. I don’t know much more than that, but I’m going to find out.’

‘She was here. Last week. I saw her go into your office. Why was she here?’

‘She wanted a new trial for her husband. He was convicted of murder.’

‘I remember reading the case when I was still in law school. What did you tell her?’

‘I said there was nothing to warrant a new trial. No new evidence.’ He blew out a breath. ‘And now she’s dead. I need to get some answers. If Anderson comes by again, can you hold him off for a while? He just wants me to cut a deal with Willis.’

Daphne’s brows shot up. ‘Franklin Willis shot two women to death over a hundred bucks in their cash register. We have him on tape. Why the hell would you cut a deal?’

‘Because the defense is saying the police recovered the gun in a bad search and the tape is grainy. I’ve been trying to find a way around a deal. Buy me a little time if you would. I need answers on Elena Muñoz first. I’ll have to prepare a statement.’

‘Wait. Ford wasn’t the only one calling me, all worried.’

Something in the way she said it told him who it had been. ‘My mom? Why?’

‘She wanted to be sure you were okay as you weren’t answering your cell phone. She asked me to remind you that you’re having dinner with her tomorrow tonight. I told her I’d fuss at you to call her. So call your mother, Grayson.’ She smiled kindly, taking the edge off her admonition. ‘And have a muffin.’

‘Poppy seed?’ he asked and she nodded.

He used to be annoyed when Daphne brought baked goods into the office, but that was because she’d baked with peaches, which gave him hives. As soon as he’d come clean about his allergies, she’d made it a point to bake his favorite treats.

Somewhere in her forties, she was brazen and bold, wore her hair too big and her suits too neon. She mothered the entire office, himself included. But she was smart and resourceful and a fierce combatant in the courtroom. She’d gone to law school when her son was in high school, which couldn’t have been easy. In the year they’d worked together Grayson had come to respect her highly. He had also grown to like her far more than he’d ever admit.

‘I’ll hold off Anderson as long as I can, but please call him soon so he stops yelling.’

Grayson snagged a muffin. ‘Soon,’ he promised. He closed his office door and called the person he could trust to give him the truth. While the phone rang, he found the video on the news station’s website. By the time he heard ‘Hello?’ he was staring once again at the woman with the dark eyes.

‘Stevie, it’s Grayson.’

‘Grayson?’ Homicide Detective Stevie Mazzetti’s voice was immediately concerned. ‘What’s wrong?’

He frowned. ‘Why do you always ask me that when I call?’

‘Because you only call when something’s wrong.’

He considered it. ‘So maybe I do. But you only call when you want a warrant.’

She chuckled. ‘Fair enough. What’s up?’

‘The sniper shooting. I need everything you know.’

‘Hell.’ All the humor fled from her voice. ‘Not much. The vic was shot at two different locations. Ballistics is still out, but it’s two different weapons. A woman walking her dog stopped to help the victim and narrowly avoided being shot herself.’

On his screen the woman had jumped out of the minivan’s path and was now rushing to aid the victim. ‘I know. I’m watching the video.’

‘You and everyone else on the planet,’ Stevie grumbled. ‘It looks like he shot her from a business park, one driveway up. But we’re still not sure.’

‘All those video cameras and nobody got the shooter?’

‘All the cameras were pointed at the victim in the minivan.’

‘Where were the first shots fired? Before she crashed?’

‘We don’t know yet. Right now, just about everyone’s searching for the sniper. I don’t have to tell you that tensions are high around here. Ten-year anniversary and all.’

‘Here, too.’ He hesitated. ‘Has the victim been ID’d yet?’

‘Elena Muñoz. Grayson, what’s going on? What’s with all the questions?’

Eyes on his screen, Grayson flinched once more when the shot was fired, waiting until the dark-eyed woman staggered out of the blurred zone. ‘I prosecuted Elena’s husband. Who’s primary?’

‘Perkins was the first on the scene, but as soon as Hyatt heard “sniper”, he pulled him. Perkins’s partner hadn’t even made it to the scene yet. Hyatt made Bashears and Morton primary. It was simply a question of experience. Perkins has never dealt with a high-profile case and Bashears and Morton have.’

Grayson searched his mental archive. ‘Morton was on the husband’s case.’

‘Really? When was that?’ Stevie asked. ‘I don’t remember the Muñoz case.’

‘Six years ago.’

Stevie’s breath came out in a little rush. ‘Oh. Well, that explains it.’

Stevie’s husband and son had been killed six years ago, leaving Stevie seven months’ pregnant and grieving. She’d taken a leave of absence until after Cordelia had been born. There was a period of several months Stevie didn’t remember and nobody blamed her for it, Grayson least of all. Stevie’s husband had been his friend.

‘Why aren’t you and Fitzpatrick lead on this?’

‘Probably because we weren’t in the office yet when all this went down. We’ll get pulled in before it’s all over, but right now we’re on a case of our own. Gang shooting a few hours ago. We’re off to inform the parents of a seventeen-year-old boy. Which’, she added flatly, ‘is my very favorite thing to do in all the world.’

‘Sorry. Be safe.’

‘We will.’ She hesitated. ‘Call me if you need me, Gray. I mean that.’

‘Thanks.’ Grayson hung up and watched the video once again. Ramon Muñoz had been denied bail, so he’d been locked up ever since his arrest six years ago.
Why did Elena come to see me last week? Why now?

He wondered who she’d gone to see after she’d left his office, fighting back tears of despair. He wondered who else she’d sought out for help. He wondered whose apple cart she’d upset badly enough to end up riddled with bullets.

He picked up his phone. ‘Daphne, can you get a number for Detectives Bashears or Morton? They’re primary on the Muñoz murder.’

‘You want me to call them, tell them she was here last week?’

‘No, just have them call me. I’ll tell them. Thanks.’

‘Anything else? Another muffin?’

‘No, but thanks. Do we have word on the Samson jury?’ They’d been deliberating another one of his murder cases for four days. He wished they’d hurry the hell up.

‘Just entering the jury room to resume deliberations. Sounds like they may be close though. Hopefully this morning. Hey, Anderson called again. He knows you’re in the building. Said if you didn’t call him, he’d plead down Willis himself.’

‘Man has goddamn spies,’ Grayson muttered. He hung up, closed the video of Elena and the dark-eyed woman, and dialed his boss, ready for a good fight.

Detective Stevie Mazzetti slid her phone into her pocket with a frown.

JD Fitzpatrick glanced away from the road to study her face. ‘So? Spill.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just Grayson being odd.’

‘Grayson isn’t odd. He’s always too mad.’

‘He’s not always mad. Just when he’s working.’

JD gave her a pointed look. ‘He works always. Therefore he is mad always.’

‘Almost always. So you’re almost right. So what?’

‘I’m always right,’ JD said smugly, and Stevie grinned in spite of herself.

‘You’re full of yourself today. Why?’

He grinned back, the look of a well-satisfied man.
Which is how it should be
. Her partner of one year was getting married in a month and she’d never seen him so happy. Still, ‘she put on her grump’, as her five year old called it. ‘I hope you two are using birth control. Otherwise, you’re gonna be procreating like bunnies.’

He said nothing and Stevie’s grump faded like mist. ‘Lucy’s pregnant!’ She clapped her hands. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since this morning,’ he confessed. ‘Don’t tell Lucy I told you. And don’t tell anyone else yet. We want to keep it a secret for a few months.’

‘Good luck with that,’ she said, and laughed out loud.

‘I know. Tell me what’s making Smith odd today so I can practice my serious face.’

‘He asked about the sniper’s victim. Said he thought he recognized her. That he prosecuted her husband.’

Abruptly he sobered. ‘Makes you wonder who Mr Muñoz pissed off in jail. Still, it is odd that Grayson remembered the wife after all this time.’

‘Do you remember the faces of the spouses when you inform them of a murder?’

‘Every single one,’ JD replied.

‘Grayson once told me that every conviction is a bit like a death to the family. When the jury says “guilty”, it’s like a piece of them dies, too.’

‘Except their loved one took away someone else’s loved one forever.’

‘He knows that, and he’s more committed to getting justice for those victims than any prosecutor I know. But he remembers the mothers who cry when their children are hauled off to jail. It’s the price the bad guys pay. Unfortunately their families pay too.’

‘Like Elena Muñoz.’

‘Maybe,’ Stevie said. ‘I’ll guess we’ll see what Bashears and Morton dig up. Oh, heck. That’s our exit, right there. Whose turn is it to inform the parents?’

‘Yours,’ JD said grimly.

Stevie sighed. ‘That’s what I thought. Let’s get this over with.’

Chapter Three

Tuesday, April 5, 7.45
A.M
.

W
ith Clay safely out of sight, Paige opened her door and let Detective Morton and her partner in. With a hand signal, she sent Peabody to lie down at her side.

Bashears looked impressed. ‘That’s some dog.’ He started toward Peabody, but Paige held out her hand in warning.

‘He’s a protection dog. He knows I’m tense right now, so he’s tense too.’

Bashears studied her front door with its three brand-new deadbolts, then nodded. ‘Fair enough. I don’t suppose it’s every day you witness a murder.’

If you only knew
, she thought. And then she realized he probably did. It wouldn’t be hard to find out about her ‘incident’. Google was only a cell phone away.