Time of Death (12 page)

“I’m so disappointed in you,” she said. “I would have thought you’d have more pride than to bring home a report card like this.”

I hung my head in shame. What else could I do? Then I got an inspiration.

“You could talk to Mrs. Sandauer, Mom.”

That got her angry. “There’s no point, is there?” she said. “She isn’t going to change her mind. Her signature’s right here.” She shook the card in my face.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll try harder.”

“Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

T
HE TEAM DIDN’T GATHER
until the next morning in PJ’s office. Dave’s wife sent in some biscuits and homemade jam. PJ’s desk was sprinkled with crumbs, since everyone had gathered around it to eat. She didn’t mind at all. Two excellent biscuits with raspberry jam rested in her contented stomach.

Her eyes landed on the picture of Megabite on her desk and it seemed impossible how long ago it was that she’d offered the cat a bowl of roast beef. PJ’s hands, relaxed in her lap, could almost feel the comforting, warm feline weight and the vibration of her purrs. That’s what she’d like to be doing now, settling into her favorite chair, Megabite hopping up to claim her lap, and cracking open a good book. Make that a good love story, one to take her as far from mutilated bodies as possible.

“Doc, what do you think of that?”

PJ blinked to find all three of them looking at her.
Think of what?

“I think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” she said. It was one of Schultz’s favorite phrases, and it could fit a lot of situations.

“See?” Schultz said triumphantly, banging his fist on PJ’s desk. “She agrees with me. That’s two against two.”

He didn’t seem to realize that two against two was a tie.

“Could we move on to Anita’s report on May Simmons?” she asked.
When in doubt, change the subject.

Anita straightened up in her chair, looking like a high school student about to give an oral book report.

“I first went over to the Simmons house about seven o’clock Sunday night. No one was home but the maid, who said that the couple had gone to Powell Hall for a symphony performance. Apparently, neither of them was heartbroken about Arlan’s death, at least not heartbroken enough to give up two hundred dollars’ worth of tickets. So I took a break and got a few hours’ sleep. I went back Monday morning. The knife had already been found. I talked with May for almost two hours,” Anita said. “You need a roadmap in that place. Must be fifteen thousand square feet. When June said that her sister had no reason to be jealous financially, she was certainly telling the truth.”

“So the sister married well, better than June did.”

“Yeah, you could say that. Frank’s the owner of a company that makes computer components.”

“How about May?” Dave said.

“Takes care of the kids, shops, and occasionally volunteers on some fund-raising committee. She likes it that way, has no other ambitions. Frank wants her to do whatever makes her happy. He seems totally in love with her. I’m not sure whether May feels that way about him, or just about his money. She’s a beautiful woman and could probably have her choice of wealthy men. All she’d have to do is wiggle her ass and light up her zillion watt smile.”

“Hmm, sounds like you’re jealous,” Schultz said.

Anita shook her head. “I wouldn’t mind having her T&A assets, but the lifestyle, nope.”

“Is it so hard to believe that a beautiful, rich woman might actually love her husband and be faithful to him?” PJ said.

“Yes,” said Dave and Schultz simultaneously.

“Men are so cynical,” she said.

“Comes with the Y chromosome,” Schultz said.

“One more thing about Frank,” Anita said. “His left arm isn’t normal. It’s withered a little, reminds me of those tiny little arms on a T. rex, only not nearly as bad. The story is that he was on one of those adventure vacations in the Australian desert and got bitten on his left forearm by an inland taipan, supposedly the world’s deadliest snake. He was evacuated out on a helicopter and given the antivenin in an IV while still in the air, but he barely made it. He’s got some kidney damage, too, but that doesn’t show on the outside.”

“So he has limited strength in his left arm?” PJ asked. Anita nodded. “Well, that puts a crimp in his ability to lug Arlan around, doesn’t it? I may have come up with something interesting about getting the body to the dump site in my simulation, though.”

“Moving on to the murder weapon,” Anita said. “The knife was found in a drawer of a potting bench in an attached greenhouse. May asked her husband if he had an old knife she could use to cut roots when she was repotting. A couple of weeks ago, he left one in the drawer for her. Besides May, Frank, and the household staff, a number of people have been in and out of that home, including June, Arlan’s partner Fredericka Chase, and about a hundred people who attended a Christmas open house a few days ago.”

Schultz moaned. “We have a list?”

“Yeah. Looks like you’re going to have to interview the mayor and the chief of police, Boss.”

“Fuck that. Dave’ll do it,” Schultz said. “They already got a bad opinion of me from … never mind.”

“Let Anita do it,” PJ said. “She’s got tact.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Doc, but I’d be happy to let Dave handle it,” Anita said. Dave shook his head vigorously.

“Can’t we narrow down that list?” PJ asked. “Any of those people at the open house could have taken the knife while they were in the house and then used it to kill Arlan, but how did the bloody knife get back into the greenhouse? Wouldn’t it have to be done by someone who goes to the house frequently?”

“Or someone who can break into the greenhouse,” Schultz said. “Or who can hire someone to break into the greenhouse.”

“Surely a house like that has a security system,” PJ said.

“And your point is?”

PJ frowned. Homes with security systems still got burglarized. It wasn’t an absolute protection, just a deterrent.

“Frank admits the knife belongs to him,” Anita said, “and says it was in his basement workshop until his wife’s request. His alibi isn’t solid. He was home working on a presentation on his computer at the time of Arlan’s murder. The maid retired to her quarters, as he says, about four o’clock. There’s another maid who doesn’t live in, and she left at three o’clock. The nanny was in the children’s suite, and the last time Frank saw her was at dinner around half past five. There’s a chef, but he left the house as soon as dinner was on the table. Always does.”

“Take away the hired help and it’s the same as Fredericka’s evening. Working at home with no verification,” PJ said. “How about his wife?”

“Out of the state,” Anita said, looking at her notes. “She flew to Minneapolis on Friday because a friend who had cancer took a turn for the worse. May was in the hospital room when the friend died, and didn’t leave that city until late Sunday afternoon. The friend’s parents confirmed it. She spent Friday and Saturday night at their home, and is planning to fly back on Wednesday for the funeral.”

“Shouldn’t she have just stayed in Minneapolis until the funeral?” PJ asked. “Why did she come home?”

“Symphony tickets.”

“Christ, she’s either cold as hell,” Schultz said, “or a tightwad.”

“Or a music lover,” PJ said. “Many people find music soothing, even when beset by grief.”

Schultz looked at her, thinking that there were very few people who could get away with saying “beset by grief and not sound pretentious or just plain ludicrous.

Who’d have ever guessed I’d fall for a shrink? Or that she’d have the slightest interest in me?

He admired the way her sweater skimmed her breasts and the v-neck displayed her long, elegant neck. He focused on the hollow of her throat, thinking of the way it sometimes vibrated when she spoke, the remembered thrumming of her heartbeat on his lips as he kissed her there when she was excited.

It wasn’t just sex, although that was glorious with her. It was everything about her: intelligence, sense of humor, caring, the pride in her eyes when she talked about her son, the way she understood on a deep level his need to see justice done, and that she shared that need. Although he’d loved his ex-wife Julia, it was nothing like the primal connection he felt with PJ. His relationship with Julia now felt like three decades of practicing for the real event, for the love of his life.

Not that any of that made PJ easy to live with. No doubt she felt the same way about him. They were like two bolts of lightning that sizzled and crackled when they approached each other, but when they merged, they made one hell of a storm.

Anita and Dave drifted out to start working their way through the Christmas open house guest list. Schultz remained behind. He wanted to talk to PJ about the report from Chicago.

“You didn’t hear a word of Dave’s report,” he said. “You had no idea what you didn’t want to jump to conclusions about. I just didn’t want to make an issue of it.”

A defensive look flashed across PJ’s face, and was quickly replaced by something approaching contrition. “No. I was daydreaming.”

“Dave got together with one of the Chicago clients Arlan was supposed to meet. There were three men, but the other two didn’t show. Looks like the real estate deal had something to do with pressuring other owners to sell so that entire blocks could be revitalized. The developers wanted to get their hands on all the property in the neighborhood before values started going up. Arlan was supposed to provide the persuasion money, and the hired strong arm tactics, to get the ball rolling.”

“Okay, I get it now.” She was looking off to the side, and still seemed distracted.

He should have let it go right then. He should have, but he didn’t. “Christ, Doc, lives depend on our work. This isn’t the fucking PTA. You can have your sex fantasies on your own time, which isn’t the middle of a meeting. A meeting that you called, by the way.”

“I get the point,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about sex, anyway. That’s your department. I’ve heard you’ve got a fantasy life with a whole harem of women to do your bidding.”

“What the fuck? Who told you that?”

“Anita,” PJ said smugly.

“Fuck, I can’t say anything around that woman without it ending up in your ears!”

“Women
have
been known to talk to each other.”

As if that was news.

PJ’s eyes were shooting frozen rays. The temperature in the room dropped about eighty degrees, and he could practically hear his coffee freezing over. He should have let it go then, but he didn’t.

“Yeah, but she’s a cop, damn it,” he said. “Her father’s a fucking cop. Cops keep shit about each other inside the Job, or we couldn’t fucking say anything.”

Wrong. Shit.
He saw by the look on PJ’s face that he’d struck a major nerve. He fought down the tiny spark of glee deep inside that was a remnant of their first days of working together.
Big time wrong. How do I get out of this one?

“You and your foul language can get the fuck out of my office,” she said, “and go back to your little piece of real estate you can’t even call your own because you share your desk with another fucking
cop
.”

PJ was a cobra with its hood spread, and if he didn’t act quickly, he’d get a toxic bite, and probably get kicked out of her bed, too. He raised his hands, palms facing her, in a gesture of either pacification or warding off.

Inspiration struck. He plucked the data gloves from their box, quickly stretched them over his large hands, and plopped the HMD on his head.

“Let’s see your simulation,” he said. “I’m not budging. I’m here to work.”

Schultz waited, the darkened interior of the helmet blocking his view of PJ’s reaction, wondering if his gamble would pay off. Wondering how long to wait in the darkness. It was hard to judge the passage of time. He began counting his respiration rate, adding six to his resting rate of sixteen per minute to account for agitation. He knew his resting rate due to long hours of boring surveillance when it was a game to make something out of nothing.

Sixty-two breaths later, the blue screens in front of his eyes came on, almost blindingly.

“I’ll be the killer,” he said, even though she knew his preference.

Originally highly skeptical of PJ’s simulations, calling them glorified computer games, he’d come to accept their value as another investigative tool—as long as they didn’t replace interviewing real people and looking at real crime scenes.

Taking the role of killer was a natural for him because it was the way he worked an investigation, anyway, by putting himself in the killer’s mind, thinking what the killer thought, and seeing what the killer saw. It gave his hunches a chance to ferment.

After Schultz, as the driver, had rolled the body down the levee, he did something he figured PJ hadn’t thought to do. He walked around to the rear of the vehicle and opened the trunk. What was in there, if not the body?

The trunk light illuminated a small portion of the space, leaving the edges in darkness. A tarp protected the carpeting of the trunk. On it was a stained towel that, when he pulled it aside, revealed an assortment of knives, the blood nearly black under the dim light. There was also a plastic bag. Schultz lifted the bag, feeling its weight in his virtual hand. He brought it up into the moonlight.

“I think I found Arlan’s dick,” he said. He squinted at the bag and squeezed it. “And balls. Fingertips too, and maybe something that looks like a nose. The parts that weren’t found at the dump site. I wonder where they are now.”

P
J GOT A CALL
from June, who wanted to meet at a new coffeehouse on Grand named Dean’s Beans. PJ arrived early and claimed a corner seating arrangement, two well-cushioned chairs with a low table between them, by plopping her jacket across the table. The scent of fine coffee wrapped itself around PJ like a welcome comforter. She sighed with enjoyment. She couldn’t drag Schultz to a place like this. If it wasn’t on the menu at Millie’s Diner, he wasn’t interested.

She didn’t know what June wanted to talk about, but there was one big question on PJ’s mind. Did June know her husband was having an affair with his business partner?