Random Victim (9 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

First Impressions

The house was a two-level brick with a descending rear portion. The two large windows in the front both had heavy drapes securely
closed, although lights appeared to be on inside. Leal found the doorbell next to the aluminum screen door. The interior door
was solid-looking mahogany. He leaned on the button once, waited about five seconds, then hit it a couple more times. They
heard chimes sounding wildly on the inside.

“That ought to get his attention,” Leal said.

“To say the least,” Hart said. He could tell she was still nervous.

Moments later the sound of movement came from the other side of the door. The ornate light above them flared to life, and
a speaker below the doorbell asked, “Who is it?”

“Police,” Leal said, holding up his badge case to the peephole. “We’d like to speak to you, Mr. Walker.”

“What about?” the speaker asked.

Leal shot a quick glance at Hart, then said, “Your wife’s death, sir. We’ve recently been assigned to the case.”

There was a long pause.

“I see,” the voice finally said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The “moment” stretched to a good three or four minutes. Leal rang the bell again in impatience.

The door flew open and a balding, overweight man with wire-rimmed glasses stood glaring at them through the screen door. The
petulance was obvious in his voice as he said, “You didn’t have to ring the bell again. I was on my way.”

Leal smiled. “Sorry, I thought you forgot about us.”

Martin Walker sniffed and asked to see their identification again. He took a particularly long look at each, matching their
faces to the photos. Leal placed him at around fifty, but knew from the case file that he was actually thirty-seven. This
dude ain’t into clean living, he thought. Walker’s hair was light brown, and mostly gone in front, except for a peninsula-like
section combed back from the center of his forehead. He had on a light blue bathrobe, striped pants, and house slippers. Leal
realized that Walker was wearing pajamas. His skin had a loose, doughy look to it and his fingers toyed with the ends of the
robe’s sash. He sniffed again and asked, “I was in the bath. Now, what can I do for you?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about your wife, sir.” Leal said. Hart stood by, watching Walker with intensity, her
whole body stiff and tense.

“For God’s sake,” Walker said, “I’ve already told you people everything so many times.” He drew in a sharp breath. “But I
suppose if it helps…Come on.”

They followed him down a hallway that opened into a large living room. Picture windows were set into each wall, one obviously
meant to show a view of the front and the other the back, had the heavy drapes not been closed. A massive television in a
wooden case with a VCR/DVD player underneath stood across from a curving white sofa. Several other matching chairs were strategically
placed, along with a tall grandfather clock and other ornamental furnishings to give the place a decorative distinctness.
At the room’s entrance was an ornately carved and highly polished circular table upon which stood a bronze statue of a satyr.
A floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with brown leather-bound volumes lined other wall. Numerous video cassettes and DVDs were
stacked haphazardly on a small metal table next to the television.

Walker went to the coffee table in front of the couch, picked up a remote control, and shut off some cable movie. He turned
and rubbed his index finger quickly under his nose.

“I wish you would have called first, Officer…” He let his voice trail off, suggesting that he’d forgotten their names.

“Leal, Sergeant Francisco Leal. And this is my partner, Detective Hart.”

She nodded and smiled politely.

Walker shifted his gaze to her momentarily, then glanced back at Leal, who strode past him and went to look at an oil painting
of some running horses that was hanging over the couch. Leal stood there, waiting for Walker to follow him.

“Now, just what is it you wanted?” Walker asked, walking toward Leal. His voice sounded tight.

Leal didn’t answer, but instead crossed his arms and stared at the painting. Slowly he turned his head and said, “That’s a
mighty nice painting.”

“I’m glad you have an appreciation for art, Sergeant. But you surely didn’t come here for that, did you?”

Leal shook his head slightly, grunted, and sat down on the sofa. He took out a small notebook and a pen from his sports jacket.

“Mr. Walker, we’ve been recently assigned to a task force investigating your wife’s death,” he said. “We’re sort of reviewing
things at this point.”

Walker licked his lips. After a few moments he said, “That doesn’t speak very well of the communications system in your police
department.” He picked up a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and lit it. “Can we get on with this?”

“Sure,” Leal said, speaking more slowly than usual. “What can you tell us about the day your wife disappeared?”

“Not much,” Walker said. He perched on the arm of the sofa, his head swiveling occasionally toward Hart, who was standing
silently on the left. “I worked till about four thirty, then I went to an alumni meeting of my old fraternity. We’re planning
a fifteen year reunion.”

“Where was this meeting?”

Walker drew deeply on the cigarette before answering. He blew out some smoke. Leal watched Hart recoil visibly and smirked.
She’d have to get used to dealing with smokers in this business.

“It was at a gentlemen’s club on Wabash,” Walker said. “My secretary could probably get you the address, as well as names
of people who can verify that I was there.” He took another quick puff on the cigarette. “You know, this would have been a
lot simpler if you’d scheduled an appointment and come to my office.”

“We were in the neighborhood,” Leal said, smiling. “So what time did this meeting break up?”

“Actually, we had dinner there also.” He brought the cigarette to his lips and sucked on it almost greedily this time. “I
don’t know. Maybe seven thirty or eight. I caught one of the late trains home and had to wait. I do remember that.”

“And you arrived home at?”

“Around nine thirty or so.”

“Was Mrs. Walker home at this time?”

“No, she also had a meeting that night,” he said. He took a final drag and stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray. “Her domestic
violence committee. I didn’t think anything of her not being home,” he reached for the pack of cigarettes again, “but when
it got close to midnight I began to make some calls. Orville Baker, another lawyer we know, said she hadn’t even come to the
meeting.”

“Is that when you first called the police?” Hart asked.

The suddenness of her voice seemed to startle Walker.

He paused with the cigarette unlit in his mouth.

“The first time, yes,” Walker said, bringing up the lighter, which he flicked several times to no avail. Walker tossed the
lighter down on the coffee table and leaned forward to pull open a drawer. He rummaged through it as he spoke, finally pulling
out a white book of matches with glossy red letters. “They declined to do anything, saying she wasn’t actually missing, and
could just be”—he struck one of the matches on the safety slate and lit the cigarette—“making a late night of it with some
friends, or something equally ridiculous.” Walker shook out the match, dropped it into the ashtray, and placed the matchbook
beside it. “I can’t help feeling that if they’d done something right then and there, this whole thing might have turned out
differently.”

“You wife ever stay out late before?” Leal asked.

“Sometimes.”

Leal rolled his pen between his fingers. “Would you have an address book of your wife’s friends we could look at?”

Walker blinked several times before answering.

“Not really,” he said, tapping the cigarette over the ashtray. “I do have a book of my associates, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t
do you any good. Miriam never used it. She had her own book, but I’m afraid I don’t know where she might have kept it.”

“Perhaps we could go through some of her things?” Hart asked.

Walker seemed startled again as he turned toward her. This guy’s uneasy around women, Leal thought.

“Unfortunately, that’s not possible, either,” Walker said. He took a quick puff, exhaled, and squinted through the smoke.
“I had our former housekeeper dispose of them. You see, I was so devastated by the entire incident, I just didn’t want anything
around to remind me.”

Leal nodded, then asked, “So do you have any theories about what happened, Mr. Walker?”

Walker exhaled twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils.

“Isn’t that supposed to be
your
job, Sergeant?”

“We’ll need some names of some mutual friends of you and your wife.”

Walker brought his hand up and pushed up his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose.

“Miriam and I had few friends in common,” he said slowly. “That we saw socially, anyway.”

“Maybe some of her friends, then?”

“I might be able to come up with some,” he said. He blew up a thoughtful-looking cloud of smoke into the now hazy room. “But
not off the top of my head.”

“Okay,” Leal said, standing. “Would you have a picture of her we could borrow? I’d like to get it reproduced. We’ll make sure
it gets returned.”

Walker stood and compressed his lips. “I’ll have to try and locate one.”

“Anything will do,” Leal said. “Maybe a wedding picture even.”

Walker stared at him. “As I said, I’ll have to look. Now is there anything else?”

Leal bit at his lip and squinted. “How about the housekeeper’s name and number?”

“I can give you the agency’s number. I had to let her go.” Walker set the cigarette down in the ashtray and went over to a
table with a telephone and picked up a black leather folder. Leal stepped over to the couch, stooped briefly to reset Walker’s
smoldering cigarette, then straightened up. Walker read off the number and Leal scribbled it down.

“Now,” Walker said, flipping the book closed rather abruptly, “I really do have an early day tomorrow.”

“Okay, sir,” Leal said. “We’ll be in touch later for that list of your wife’s friends then.” He started toward the door, then
stopped. “Do you know the routes she usually took when she was going to those meetings?”

Walker frowned and shook his head.

“Those meetings were regular?” Leal asked.

“The third Tuesday of the month,” Walker said. He wiped at his mouth.

“Did your wife wear any regular jewelry?” Leal asked. “You know there was none recovered with the body.”

“I assume the people who killed her took it,” Walker said in clipped tones.

“Okay. If you think of anything else in the meantime, sir,” Leal said, handing him a card. Walker put the card into the pocket
of his robe as Leal extended his hand. “Thanks for your time.”

Walker and Leal shook hands, and Leal stared at Hart, cocking his head slightly. She returned his glance, then also held out
her hand toward Walker. He shook hers with less enthusiasm. At the door Leal paused again, placing his hand on Walker’s shoulder.

“Mr. Walker, I just want you to know that me and my partner are gonna stop at nothing to find the son of a bitch who did this
to your wife, sir,” Leal said. “You got our words on it.”

Walker seemed to stiffen at the unexpected touch. He nodded, nervously this time, and smiled.

As they got to the car, Leal opened the door and watched Hart slide into the passenger seat and take a deep breath.

“Ugh, all that smoke,” she said.

“Well, Ollie, what do you think?”

She compressed her lips, then licked them with the tip of her tongue.

“I don’t know, Sarge. His reactions didn’t seem right. Something was off. He sure didn’t act like a husband should.” She shook
her hand exaggeratedly. “Sweaty palms, too.”

“Yeah, the sure sign of a nervous liar,” Leal said, twisting the keys in the ignition.

They sat down the road, blacked out, watching the Walker house just to see if maybe he’d leave or if someone else would drop
by. He’d been nervous, all right. They’d both sensed that. And the perpetual sniffle suggested to Leal that Walker was putting
something up his nose on a regular basis. Excited, they both talked about the inconsistencies of Walker’s statements, his
quick disposal of all his dead wife’s clothes and belongings, and his professed ignorance of her friends.

“Not even a picture of her anywhere,” Hart said.

She was really warming to the task, Leal noticed, and it made him feel good.

“And when you brought up that part about the jewelry,” Hart said eagerly. “He said, ‘the people who killed her.’ Like he knew
it was more than one person.”

“Good point,” said Leal. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”

He grinned and could see that she held back from giving him a playful slap. Leal struck a match and let it flicker momentarily
in the darkness before blowing it out and watching the smoke curl upward from it. “Need a light?”

“What are you talking about?”

He handed her the white book of matches with the red lettering. The design spelled out
The Kit Kat Club
. An address and phone number were printed in smaller letters. Hart looked at them, then looked up smiling.

“Why, Sarge, I was wondering why you adjusted his cigarette when you were getting up.”

“Ever hear of that place?”

Hart strained to read the address, then shook her head.

“It’s up around River North,” Leal said. “Maybe we can go up there and show some pictures around.”

Hart rotated her head slowly with her eyes closed, seeming to stifle a yawn.

“Tired?” Leal asked.

“A little, I guess.”

Leal shifted into gear.

“We might as well call it a night, then. This isn’t going to tell us anything else.” He looked at her in the darkness. “You
did all right in there tonight.” In the moonlight he could see her smile ever so slightly.

He rolled well past Walker’s house before turning on the lights. As they wound their way back toward the main highway a vehicle
with its brights on came from the other direction. Leal flashed his brights, but the other car’s didn’t dim at all. A white
Jaguar whizzed past them.