The Rogue Element (Scott Priest Book 1) (3 page)

“We’ve talked to just about everyone who could offer anything useful,” Parsons said.  “Patrol has been conducting door-to-doors all morning. So far it hasn’t produced any meaningful noise.” 

“I suppose everyone heard about the Dispatch leak?” I asked the group.

“What else is new with that piece of garbage?” Krieger muttered.

“Any idea how they got her name?” Kimball asked.

“Probably one of the first responders looking for a quick dollar,” I speculated.

The snarky glint in Krieger’s eye returned. “Are you suggesting that someone connected to this investigation is on the take?”

“I’m not suggesting that anyone is on the take, Alan. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

Krieger put his hands up in mock surrender. “Easy, kid. I was just joking around. What’s with the sensitivity?”

I needed to take a deep breath before responding. “Who’s sensitive?”

“Right now I’d say the entire department is,” Kimball answered. “But this isn’t the time for a group therapy session to explore our feelings about it. Has Marisol’s family been given a formal notification?” 

Parsons nodded. “Her oldest daughter was contacted an hour ago. A patrol unit has already paid a visit.”

“We should follow up,” Kimball suggested.

I agreed. “Do we have an address for her?”

“I’m assuming you can get it from the hotel’s HR office,” Parsons said.

I looked at Kimball. “I’ll send one of the uniforms for it.”

“As long as you don’t mind making the trip to see the Alvarez kid by yourself,” Kimball responded. “I could do without the grieving family piece this morning.”

In two years as his partner, I’d never known Detective Kimball to be comfortable with the grieving family piece, particularly when children were involved. In one of the rare moments of vulnerability I managed to pry out of him, he confessed that the grief over the disintegration of his own family was largely to blame.

When I first met Kimball, I could always count on Monday morning stories about his fun-filled weekend visits with his two boys Jordan and Tyler. Over time the stories became less and less frequent, until one Monday morning when he showed up to work with the court-approved petition by his ex-wife to move his sons halfway across the country. The boys had come to visit him four times since the move. Those visits were the best times of his life, he’d say. Until it was time for them to leave. “
It feels like dying every time,
” was how he described those tear-filled moments of saying goodbye. It is a feeling he says he relives after every meeting with a victim’s family.

“No worries. I got it covered,” I said with a pat on Kimball’s shoulder.

“Great. Now that that’s settled, what are we going to do about this no witnesses, no suspects, no murder weapon issue we seem to have?” Krieger asked.

I didn’t hesitate to answer. “We’ll keep checking in with hotel security regarding the surveillance footage, we make sure every single person who was in the hotel last night is interviewed, and we keep reiterating to hotel management the importance of keeping a lid on the extra-curricular activity. It might be impossible to close them down completely, but we can at least get them to monitor the traffic flow a little more closely. Beyond that, we trust everybody else to do their jobs and wait for the break that we all know is coming.”

Parsons smiled. “Spoken like a true lead detective. For a while Alan and I were starting to think you didn’t want the job.”

“I swear Jimmy, if you say one more thing about us being late…”

Parsons laughed so hard his distended belly shook. Unfortunately, his partner wasn’t so jovial.

“Hey kid, next private meeting you have with the lieutenant, make sure you vouch for me regarding those AK’s. Maybe if he had a trusted ear to vet my character, he’d finally stop shooting me dirty looks.”

Despite his open smile, I couldn’t tell if Krieger was joking or not. I was leaning toward
not
. “I don’t know what makes you think I’m such a trusted ear, but whatever.”

Krieger shrugged. “Call it a healthy distrust of the brass. Don’t mind me.”

“I’m doing my best not to.”

“On that note, why don’t we break up this little sewing circle and try our hands at some police work,” Kimball said.

“I haven’t heard a better idea all morning,” I declared as I made my way toward the front door. The relentless browbeating about my time in Hitchcock’s office was starting to wear thin, and even though I was fairly certain I’d maintained adequate composure, I had no confidence in my ability to keep cool for much longer. 

Kimball met me in the hallway, followed by Krieger and Parsons. Krieger, as usual, was the first to speak.

“I’m on my way to meet up with hotel security to see if there is any progress on that footage. Jimmy is going to catch up with some of the uniforms to see how the door-to-doors are coming.”

“Then I’ll take another crack at Natalie Glassman,” Parsons said with a subtle smile.

“Just make sure you don’t hold back the Parsons charm this time, huh big guy? Kimball joked.

“Yeah Jimmy. Bat those luscious eyelashes of yours a few times,” I added for good measure.

Parsons’ pale face turned beet red. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“We’ll catch up with you guys at HQ,” I continued. “Hopefully there will be some decent notes to compare by then.”

“Hope so,” Krieger said. “And good luck with Marisol’s family.”

It was the first time I had detected sincerity in his voice. “Thanks.”

“You got it. And as far as all the Lieutenant Hitchcock stuff, that’s just me busting your balls a little bit. I personally don’t trust the guy as far as I can throw him. There aren’t many of us who do after what’s been happening lately. You’re still fairly new around here, so you haven’t been burned the way some of us have. Nobody wants to see that happen.”

Even in his apology Krieger was still pressing. I tried to remain nonchalant as I responded. “Thanks for the concern, but it wasn’t a big deal. He only called me in for a quick progress report on Alvarez.”

“Without the other lead detective?” Krieger asked as he pointed at Kimball.

“I told you Alan, I don’t get invited to the meetings with the big dogs,” he replied with a wink.

“Hell, I’ll file the EEOC paperwork for you, brother.”

Krieger and Kimball shared a laugh. I would have joined in had I not already known that the laughter was at my expense. “I have a family to talk to. I’ll see you old hens later.”

Kimball and I made our way to the elevators while Krieger and Parsons lingered in the doorway of the suite.

“Remember kid, I’m just busting your balls,” Krieger yelled as I stepped on to the elevator.

I un-holstered my middle finger and was preparing to fire in response, but the elevator door closed before I could.

“Crotchety old bastard,” Kimball sniffed as he pressed the lobby button. “Don’t let him get to you.”

Too late
, I thought as I stared straight ahead, wondering how I was going to tell Kimball that he had gotten to me too.

“There’s just a lot of unnecessary paranoia floating around the squad room right now, and the brass, including Lieutenant Hitchcock, is largely to blame for it,” Kimball continued. “If they would show some actual leadership and sit down openly with us for ten minutes that would probably be the end of it. But because they choose not to tell us anything, we assume they’re hiding stuff. Our time on the street trains us to think the worst about most situations we encounter. Makes us all more hypersensitive than we should be. I think Krieger has got it worse than most.”

“And where do you fall on that spectrum, Nate? Are you hypersensitive too?”

“Not about your meeting with Hitchcock.” Kimball cracked a smile. “But I am curious.”

We stepped off the elevator into a lobby that was largely empty except for a front desk clerk and two uniforms standing near the entrance. We waited in silence as one of the officers made the trip to the Human Resources office for Marisol’s address. I didn’t speak again until we were settled in the car.

“Hitchcock and I weren’t talking about Alvarez, by the way. I would never discuss a case in-depth without you being there.”

Kimball nodded his understanding, but his silent stare indicated that he was still searching for an answer, so I gave him one.

“We were actually talking about my father.”

The explanation had apparently been satisfactory as Kimball promptly redirected his attention out the window. After a prolonged silence, he asked, “How is Carl?”

I started the car and pulled out of the docking bay where we had parked. The Tuesday morning traffic seemed heavier than usual. “He actually remembered my name yesterday.”

I cursed myself as I forced down the lump that had suddenly infiltrated my throat. I had no business using my father as a cover story, especially because I couldn’t seem to talk about him these days without something inside of me cracking, but it was the best diversion I could come up with.

“That’s great,” Kimball replied in the stiff tone he used when he needed to temper his emotion. He looked up to my father almost as much as I did, even visiting him a few times while he was still lucid enough to live with my mother. Kimball walked out of the last visit with the same look on his face that he had right now. I would definitely burn in hell for this one. Still, it was better than the alternative that the truth provided.    

We fell back into silence for much of the trip back to HQ. Kimball complained about the pile of statements he would spend the rest of the morning logging, but that was the extent of his conversation. I tried to keep my mind focused on Marisol Alvarez’s family and the hope that speaking to them would offer at least some insight into a murder victim that we currently knew nothing about.

But my thoughts kept drifting to Hitchcock and his sidekick from the AG’s office. As much as Krieger’s insinuations irritated me, I understood his distrust of the lieutenant, now more than ever. I didn’t believe for a second that he would be completely forthright in his intentions, even if I did agree to help him. Just like I didn’t believe for a second that Robert Fitzgerald was only in that meeting as a passive observer.

Kimball may have bought the cover about my father, but it did nothing to change the reality, and the thermonuclear fallout that would most likely result. If I were being honest, I would admit that Krieger was one hundred percent right to question me. Without realizing it, I had already betrayed him, Kimball, and every other hypersensitive member of the force, simply by not telling Fitzgerald to fuck off the moment I learned who he was. That betrayal would be something I would have to live with at least until tomorrow morning’s meeting.

I could only hope to summon the will to do the right thing by then, even though I still had no true sense of what the right thing was. 

CHAPTER 3

Marisol Alvarez’s children didn’t learn about
her murder through the Mile High Dispatch leak as I had feared. They instead got the news via a phone call from the Four Seasons’ management. Not that it mattered. There is no such thing as an ideal way to receive the news of a loved one’s sudden, violent death.

By the time I arrived at the tiny Northwest Denver apartment that Marisol shared with her two daughters, the shock and despair of the initial news had given way to detached numbness.

The thirteen and sixteen-year-old sisters sat quietly on the couch, arms tightly interlocked, as if their collective existence was dependent on the physical contact. They were surrounded by aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, but no one could seem to penetrate the force field of protection that the sisters had built around themselves. I’d had a difficult time penetrating that force field myself, as my ten-minute visit had thus far yielded little more than a chorus of angry demands from the other family present that I find whoever was responsible, and do it quickly. This was followed by the standard
“I’ll do whatever I can”
response that every detective is obligated to give in such a situation. My assurances were met with a silence that I could only interpret as disbelief. The reaction was one I had grown quite accustomed to in recent weeks.

Choosing to ignore the rest of the room, I moved my chair close enough to the girls so that only they could hear me. “I will find the person who did this to your mother. You have my word.”

Christina, the younger of the two, was the first to look at me, her damp eyes sending pleas that her voice could not. I smiled and offered a nod of reassurance as her older sister finally summoned the will to speak.

“How exactly do you plan to do that?” Dana Alvarez asked pointedly. “Do you even have a suspect?” The maturity in her voice betrayed her young age. She would need every bit of that maturity going forward.

“Not yet. We’re doing the absolute best we can, but we could use some help.”

“Help with what?” Christina asked in a voice that didn’t possess nearly the measure of her sister’s.

“We need to learn as much about your mom as possible: who her friends were, any romantic relationships she may have had, what her state of mind was prior to yesterday. Things like that.”

The blank stares that I got back indicated the need for a simpler approach.

“Did you notice anything strange about her behavior over the past few days? Was she worried about anything? More quiet than usual?”

“It was just the opposite,” Dana offered as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “She was really excited about her new job. All she could talk about was how nice the hotel was and how much more money she would be making. It was the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time.”

“Did she talk about anyone she worked with?”

“Not anyone specifically. She said she was part of a crew of four that was assigned to clean the bigger rooms.”

“Any problems with the crew?”

“No. Like I said, she seemed really happy.” Dana paused. “Much happier than the last place she worked.”

“And where was that?”

Dana and Christina exchanged a glance. Christina tightened her grip on her older sister’s arm.

“She was a housekeeper.”

“For whom?” I asked as I pulled out a notepad that desperately needed to be filled.  

“A cop.”

I immediately stopped writing. “Say that again?”

“The man whose house our mom worked in. He was a cop in your department.”

I almost asked Dana to repeat herself again, but I knew her response wouldn’t be any different the third time around. So I swallowed hard and asked the question I knew I needed to ask.

“What’s his name?”

Dana looked at her sister as if she needed confirmation to answer the question. When Christina nodded her approval, Dana turned back to me. “Oliver Brandt.”

I nearly dropped my notepad. Thankfully, neither of the girls seemed to notice. “And how long was she employed by him?”

“Three years. And she mostly worked for his wife,” Dana clarified. “As far as we saw he wasn’t around very much.”

The distinction between Oliver Brandt and his wife Bethany made sense. The former is a commander of the DPD SWAT team and one of the higher-ups rumored to be at the center of the department’s brewing corruption scandal. The latter is a wealthy real estate developer whose family’s fingerprints are all over the downtown Denver skyline. Only one of them would have the financial resources to hire a full-time housekeeper, and it wasn’t the one who was still fifteen years away from collecting his meager pension. Still, any connection to Commander Brandt, no matter how loose, would bring scrutiny to the case that no one in the department wanted.

“Why did she leave?”

Dana’s face stiffened. “She was fired.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that Oliver Brandt is a sexist, racist piece of shit.”

Christina’s eyes grew wide with embarrassment as she pushed her sister’s arm. “Dana!”

“What? I’m sorry but it’s true.” She turned to me with eyes that were suddenly dark with anger. “He didn’t like my mom from minute one, like she had no business being in his house or something. She would always overhear conversations between him and Mrs. Brandt. He’d say stuff like ‘is she even legal?’ Mom just ignored it and did her job, the same as she always did. But it constantly bothered her.”

I nodded and allowed her to continue.

“Mrs. Brandt was nice though. She liked having these huge parties for all of her important friends. Mom always looked forward to those because she got paid extra. A couple of weeks before she was fired, she came home all excited because she was going to work some big to-do that Mrs. Brandt was having for the mayor. Mrs. Brandt took those parties pretty seriously. So did mom. She said she came away from them knowing more about political and business deals than they would ever tell you on the news. Everybody called her CNN because she loved to report back on everything.”

Dana smiled. It was a pretty smile and I wondered if she had inherited any parts of it from her mother. The thought made me sad and I pushed it aside as quickly as I could.

“So Oliver Brandt was the one responsible for firing your mother?”

“That’s right. She never told us the whole story of what happened, but she told us enough. He was a terrible person.”

The adrenaline spike I suddenly felt made it difficult to keep the pen in my hand steady and I had to put it down. “What did she tell you?”

“Mrs. Brandt was out of town the day mom was fired. Apparently, Mr. Brandt came home while she was there cleaning and something happened. There was a big fight and Mr. Brandt got angry. Mom got angry too, and he told her to leave and never come back. I’d never seen her more upset. She was shaking the entire night.” Dana paused. “She was scared too.”

I looked at Christina. It was clear the recollection was upsetting her. 

“Did she tell you why?” I asked Dana.

“Even though I begged her to tell me what happened she wouldn’t. After a while, I finally stopped trying, but I knew that whatever happened between her and Mr. Brandt hadn’t stopped bothering her. Even with all the relief she felt at getting another job, she hadn’t been the same since that night. He did something to her. I don’t know what, but it was bad.”

A feeling of dread came over me as I picked up the pen and wrote Commander Brandt’s name in my notepad. I couldn’t bring myself to write anything more.

“Did he do this to her?” Christina suddenly asked.

“Do what?”

“Kill her?”

The question was startling, but I maintained my composure. “Commander Brandt didn’t kill your mom.”

“Would you tell us if you believed he did?” Dana countered with a stiff glare.

“I know him, Dana. He isn’t responsible for this.”

“How can you be so sure?” 

I wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell her that. “Like I said before, I will find the person who actually did this. I promise.”

At that moment, I looked up to see that the rest of the eyes in the room were looking at me. Some of the stares were angry like Dana’s, some were desperate like her sister’s; all were demanding an immediate response to a problem they now thought I was helping to perpetuate. I hadn’t told Dana the truth when I claimed to know Oliver Brandt. The truth was that I hadn’t spoken a single word to the commander in my nine years on the force, but I refused to give in to the notion that a member of my department was capable of something as heinous as what happened to Marisol Alvarez, corruption scandal or no corruption scandal. It was apparent that Dana had already made up her mind, and her conviction was enough to sway her family. Soon, the rest of the community would be swayed too, and in their minds I would be reduced to nothing more than another crooked cop trying to cover it all up.

As I looked at the faces surrounding me, it was clear that I’d lost the room, and it would only get worse the longer I stayed. So I gave Dana my card, along with the requisite instructions to call should she need to.

After assurances from her aunt and uncle that the girls would be properly looked after, I left; much further away from square one than when I’d arrived.   

I sat in the car for a long time, staring at the only five words that I’d managed to write down during the brief interview:
Marisol Alvarez/ Commander Oliver Brandt
. But it wasn’t the words I’d written that filled me with the angst that currently rendered me immobile, it was the thought of the words I needed to write next:
connection… lead… potential suspect.
Due diligence required that I write those words, even if I didn’t want to believe them. Due diligence would also require me to follow up with appropriate action.

Hence the angst.

My current state did not allow for a rational plan through which to carry out that action. Kimball would obviously be the first person I would involve, but Kimball is former SWAT, meaning that his history with Brandt is extensive. I would have to tread carefully when I presented the news, and trust that whatever his personal reaction was, he would fully be on board with the depth of investigation that would be required. With the way this day was going so far, I wasn’t sure if I could trust anything. 

Add one more screwed up thing to this already royally screwed up day.

When I looked up from my notepad and out the car window, I quickly realized that another item was about to be added to that ever-growing list.