by TG Wolff
“When did each of you see her last?”
“Friday,” they answered in unison.
Evan took the point. “We had a beer after classes. Sophie had our table.”
“How did she seem?” Cruz asked.
Evan looked at the others before offering a hesitant answer. “Normal?”
“Was she upset? Did she seem depressed? Ill?”
“No,” Evan said. “She didn’t talk much but she doesn’t anymore, and she was busy. P.J. you talked to her the most.”
“She was in a good mood. I mean, like I said, she didn’t throw anything. I almost have her talked into having dinner with me.”
“She said yes?” Evan asked, skepticism dripping from the three small words.
P.J. rolled his eyes. “She didn’t say no.”
Cruz inserted himself back into the lead. “What did she say?”
“She asked me if I was as stupid as I looked.” His friends laughed. “She didn’t say no, assholes, and she didn’t throw anything. That’s practically a yes. I was glad I asked her before she got into a fight with that woman. After, she might have thrown a knife at me.”
“Who started the fight? Do you know who the woman was?”
“It was more of an argument,” Evan said. “She was sitting at the table when we came in. Sophie took her order and you could tell she didn’t want the woman there. After she served a glass of wine, the women grabbed her arm. They started to argue. Sophie got loud. The woman didn’t but she was pissed. She wanted Sophie to sign something. Sophie refused called the woman a frigid, heartless bitch.”
“The woman stood up fast, called Sophie a whore and said she won’t let her ruin the house,” Jakob said. “She didn’t just say it, Detective, she hissed it. I got up then because I thought Sophie might need some help. ‘This isn’t the end of this. You won’t win,’ the woman said. Then she left.”
“What did the woman look like?”
Jakob looked to the ceiling, thinking. “White. Older than Sophie and the witches. Maybe thirty-five? Forty? She had her hair and makeup done nice, like she’d just come from work.”
“Did any of the owners see it?”
P.J. shrugged. “I don’t know. It was busy and Sophie acted like nothing happened. We only heard because we were right there.”
“What time did you leave?”
Evan answered first. “Five thirteen by my phone. I was late to pick up my girlfriend.”
“Jakob and I stayed about another half hour,” P.J. said. “And she was fine.”
“Not toward the end.” Jakob was quick to contradict. “Don’t you remember? She kinda staggered when she brought us the check.”
“Right. We tried to get her to sit down. She shook us off, she said she just turned around too fast. Something was wrong, wasn’t it?”
Cruz didn’t answer. He invested another ten minutes in questions, gained little else. The friends had split up between five-thirty and six, each with their own plans for the night. None had thought of Sophie DeMusa again. He traded his cards for their contact information, then left them to their game.
The apartment across the hall had been incorporated into the bookstore below and there was no answer at either third-floor apartment. The fourth floor yielded better results.
“Chloe Capstone. I’ve been working on a paper for communications class and haven’t left my apartment yet today. Look at my hair. Does it look like I’m going out?” Her short black hair was bedhead on steroids. Cruz worried it might have been the style and had his faith in the younger generation restored to learn it wasn’t.
A young woman stepped out of apartment 4B as Cruz was contemplating Chloe’s hair. He signaled Yablonski to take Chloe and her bad hair day and then introduced himself.
“Christa Moseby,” she said. “I’ll tell you anything I can to help Sophie.”
“You were down in the basement earlier doing laundry, correct?”
Her lips tightened in a moue, likely wondering how her laundry could help her friend. “I’ve gone down twice. Once with Jakob, he lives on the second floor, and an hour later alone.”
“Did you notice anything unusual today?”
“Like what?”
He didn’t make suggestions. “Anything different than any other day.”
“Well…Jakob carried my basket. He’s never done that before. Then his friend jumped out from under the stairs and scared the shit out of me. Oh, sorry.” She blushed.
“It’s okay. I’ve heard worse. The friend who startled you, what’s his name?”
“A.J.? No, P.J. Jakob called him, P.J.”
“You hadn’t met him before.”
She shook her head. “No. I would have remembered him. He had a look like, I don’t know, he was trying too hard.”
“Trying to do what too hard?”
“Impress somebody. You know the look I mean, right? Like he’d copied it from a commercial or something, but it wasn’t really his.”
Having just met P.J. Mayfield, he understood what she struggled to describe. He was a young man who dressed the way television, ads, and social media said an up-and-coming modern man should dress. Cruz suspected the one who played Call of Duty and ate pizza was closer to the real man. “What was P.J. doing?”
“Lurking? There’s nothing under the stairs, no reason to be there. He freaked me out, so I hurried to get inside. I tried to unlock the door, then realized it wasn’t pulled closed. It’s not the first time I’ve found it unlocked.”
“Did you have the impression P.J. had come through the door?”
“No,” she said, pausing as she thought. “If he had, why would he have been waiting outside?”
“Did you lock it when you went up after that first time?”
“It locks automatically when it’s shut and, yes, I pulled it shut.”
“Anything else unusual?”
“Sophie’s cat, Diana, was loose. She kept hissing and snarling at the guys. Jakob teased her. I thought she was going to attack them, so I told them to leave. I thought she would calm down and I could take her to Jonathan’s.” She pulled up the sleeve on the sweater to reveal a two-inch-long claw rake. “I was wrong. I left her where she was.”
“Looks painful. Did you go into Sophie’s apartment?”
“No. I don’t have a key. I just went back to my apartment, put ointment on the scratch, and began working on a painting.”
“Tell me about Sophie. Did you know her before last October?”
“I’ve known her since her first day at Three Witches. She’s outgoing and happy and would do anything for a friend. Was,” Christa corrected. “After dickhead messed with her and her sorority dropped her, she didn’t have a lot to be happy about. But, I don’t know. I heard her singing one day when I was doing laundry. Twinkle, Twinkle. I thought maybe she was getting better.”
“You think she tried to kill herself?”
“What other answer is there?”
The Verdict was a popular place at five o’clock, which is when Cruz finally arrived. Inside the dark, crowded bar, he realized he didn’t know what D’Arcy Whitmore looked like. He scanned the place for single women but found only clusters.
“Detective De La Cruz?” A waitress approached with a tray full of empties.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
A slow smile grew. “Oh, you tend to stick out in a crowd. This way.”
He followed her through the throng to a booth near the back. It had been hidden behind the two rows of high-tops and suits talking with drinks in their hands.
“Detective De La Cruz. I’m D’Arcy Whitmore. I wasn’t sure you were going to show.” The woman in the dark booth was the picture of a legal professional. Her shiny blonde hair was swept back and pinned somewhere behind. Her suit was gray with thin stripes in a darker gray, tapered to her waist. She had a pretty face. Blue eyes nearly as gray as her suit, straight nose, wide mouth.
“My apol
ogies,” he said as he slid in opposite her. “The day got away from me. Thank you for waiting.”
The waitress who seated him returned. “What can I get you?”
“Cranberry and 7 Up, please.”
“I’ll take another,” D’Arcy said. “I’m glad you were late. It gave me a change to look you up. Master’s degree in criminology, Cleveland police and narcotics, then medical leave, then to homicide.” She was looking at him—a not prosecutor-to-detective appraisal but something more personal. He raised his hand casually, hiding his scars. “You’re a very intriguing man, Detective. Or can I call you Cruz?” Her smile said she left the lawyer at the office.
“Cruz works.” He took his coat off and opened the collar on his shirt, clocking out for the day. “You have the advantage, D’Arcy. Why don’t you tell me what I would have learned if I’d done my homework?”
“Went to University of Michigan for undergrad and law school, worked in Toledo for three years and hired in here last October. What? You cringed.” She busted him, but it was with laughter in her voice.
“You know the police chief is an Ohio State grad.”
“Of course, I know Edwin ‘Win’ Ramsey is a Buckeye. Even if I hadn’t done my homework, I’m a football fan. My father took me to the game where he sacked our quarterback, causing a fumble, and returned it for a touchdown to win the game. His name was synonymous with dirty, rotten luck in our house for years. My father missed out on a promotion, he got Ramsied. My brother was on the losing side of a hit-and-run, he got Ramsied. My prom date stood me up, I got Ramsied. Believe me, it was a hard decision to come work here. Talk about head over heart.”
They made small talk, and he kept up his end. It was easy with all they had in common. Her uncle was a career cop and her sister a nurse. She had nephews instead of nieces and they were the reason she moved to Cleveland. By the time her martini was empty, and he was down to ice in his Brass Ball, it felt like a drink out with a friend.
“I’ll get the next round,” she said, “and then we’ll talk about Andrew Posey. I have to warn you, I’m not in the least bit impartial.”
“I assume this is off the record?”
She signaled the waitress. “It’s so far off the record, it’s on a different album. By a different band. In a different genre.” Her voice joked, but her face was deadly serious.
Cruz bided his time, letting her set the pace.
“He raped her. I absolutely, without a doubt, believe it. He drugged her and took advantage.”
So much for a soft entry. “You didn’t press charges.”
“Because I had a belief. I didn’t have facts. Any half-rate defense attorney would have gotten an acquittal with the footage from the hotel. I spent hours looking through cases and codes trying to find the path to prosecute the scuzzball. I looked for other complaints from women to establish a pattern of behavior. There was no rape kit, no blood test. I didn’t have enough to win. I knew it. My boss knew it.”
“How did Sophie react?”
“Better than I would have in her place. She asked if it was over and I told her it was as far as the county was concerned. I reminded her she still could file a civil lawsuit, where the burden of proof was lower. He wouldn’t see jail time, but he would pay a price. But she would, too.”
“How did you gauge her frame of mind? Was she depressed?”
The drinks arrived. D’Arcy sipped, taking her time to answer. “My opinion then was she was stressed, not depressed. She had a lot on her mind. When you hear someone swallowed a handful of pills, it makes you second-guess your judgement. She was thoughtful, Cruz. She wasn’t happy about the outcome. Of course she wasn’t. I was careful to explain what she was up against when she first came to my office. At the end, we talked for over an hour, and she accepted the criminal case wouldn’t move forward. If I thought she was suicidal, I would have gotten her help.”
Based on the timeline as he understood it, Sophie would have been nearly eight weeks pregnant. She had told her mother about the baby at Christmas. Possibly, her baby was one of those things on her mind as she weighed her options against Posey. “What is your opinion of Andrew Posey?”
“Trying to be objective…” She paused, made a face, sipped her drink. “He is charismatic. He is accomplished. He is driven. I think he is likely good at his job and the city benefits from him. I don’t think he is a good person. When a man cheats on his wife, it makes me wonder what else he cheats on or at. Sophie didn’t want to press charges. She didn’t want to be in the spotlight. She just wanted what happened to her to never happen to another woman. My turn to ask questions. Did Sophie try to kill herself?”
“All the facts aren’t in. I don’t have a suspect. I don’t have a motive. What I do have is a set of circumstances that don’t add up.”
There was a spring in his step as Cruz ran up the church hall stairs that hosted the weekly meeting. Some evenings, going was the thing he had to do. Tonight, it was where he wanted to be. It was a good thing, too, as a few of the others were struggling. When he’d been down, these hands helped him up. It was an honor to return the favor.
Half past nine, he walked into his house and the distinct odor of smoke. Not a rare occurrence since he met Aurora. He inspected the kitchen for the failed attempt at dinner. The oven was empty, so was the garbage can. There wasn’t an ash, a cinder, or a piece of charred anything to be found. But there was distinct smell of smoke. Odd.
He took the stairs two at a time to their master suite. Aurora was in the shower. Again, odd. She preferred to shower in the morning.
He rapped a knuckle on the door. “Hey, baby, I’m home.”
“Oh! So soon?” She shouted over the water.
He stuck his head in. “It’s nine-thirty. Why are you showering and what’s burnt?”
“Oh, I, uh, dinner but, you know, it didn’t work out.” The water shut off. She stepped out of the shower, her naked body something to be appreciated. “Zeus, close the door. I’m cold.”
“I can fix that.” He stepped in, closing the door behind him.
Chapter Five
They strolled hand in hand through the stalls of the art fair. Aurora pulled away, drawn by some broken glass trying to pass itself off as fine art. Cruz snapped his arm to his side, bringing her back. She looked up at him, laughter and love in her eyes, only to get distracted again. And brought back against him. Again.
“Stop, Zeus. I really like this one.” Aurora tugged until he went into a stall with walls of stacked hay. She lifted a piece from a rough wooden shelf for his approval.
He studied it. “It’s a chicken. ’nough said.”
“Very observant, Detective. Don’t you think it would be perfect in our yard?”
The bird he had thought carved of wood now bobbed its head as it took in the scenery.
“We live in a city, baby. The only chicken I want is on my plate.”
“He can be our first baby.” She frowned and lifted up the bird. “If he is a he.” The bird opened its mouth and emitted a warning nuclear destruction was imminent.
“Shut that thing up, Aurora. I’m not buying a chicken. If you want a baby, I’ll give you a baby.”
She clutched his arm. “Zeus.”
“I’m not buying the fucking chicken.”
“Chicken?” She shook his shoulder. “Zeus, it’s your phone. Answer it or shoot it.”
He sat up, in his bed, in the dark, no chickens to be had, just a phone trying to wake the neighborhood. “Cruz,” he said, shaking off the last of a very fucked up dream.
“Kinsley from crime scene. Your Murray Hill location is up next. We should be there within thirty.”
The bedside clock read two-fifteen. “I’ll be there.” He ended the call, sliding from bed as he made the next. Yablonski’s voice was sharp, jagged granite. He cleared it twice before he could say his own name. “Crime scene’s on their way to the DeMusa apartment. I want you there.”
; “You need me there.”
“Same difference.”
“Not even close.” He killed the line before Cruz could come back.
“Is it bad?” Aurora rolled to face him.
“No.” He walked through the dark to the set of clothes he kept at the ready for such situations. “Crime scene is heading to Sophie’s apartment.”
“Now?” She pushed to sitting. “It’s the middle of the night.”
He shrugged, not that she could see it. Calls were prioritized and done in order. Even at two in the morning.
“Are you coming back? You’ve barely gotten two hours’ sleep.”
He grinned with no regret for the lack of sleep. He buttoned his shirt, tucked the tails into his pants. “We’ll see.”
“Which means no. I’ll make you—”
“No. Don’t get up.” He sat on the edge of the bed, socks and shoes in one hand, and brushed back her hair. “After all our playing, you need your sleep. You have work in the morning.”
She subsided. “Remember to put something in your stomach besides coffee.”
He pulled the thick comforter over her shoulders and then kissed her temple. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Happy hunting, Detective.” She giggled softly. “And watch out for those chickens.”
Outside his Cape Cod-style house, the street was silent. In the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, nothing stirred. Small white flakes floated lazily to the ground. The tidy neighborhood was coated, as if a baker had a heavy hand with the powdered sugar. The drive across town was a study in the beauty of winter, until he turned onto Murray Hill Road.
Blue and red lights swept the sleeping neighborhood turning peaceful into raucous. Crime scene had arrived.
Using the spare set of keys from the witches, Cruz let the crime scene team into the building. The tape sealing the basement door was intact. All protocols were followed. While they would have been regardless, the fluid nature of the crime meant details could be critical.