by Karen Rose
Elena had talked to the woman who’d tried to save her. God only knew what she told her Good Samaritan. Silas must have seen this. He should have taken out both women. But most disturbing was that Silas had lied about what truly transpired. Maybe Silas was outliving his usefulness, too.
Sandoval appeared in his bedroom, backing out of his closet, a suitcase in his hand.
Not so fast, little man. I want information. He wanted to know what Elena had seen. He wanted to know if he was in any way implicated. And I always get what I want.
Tuesday, April 5, 7:30 a.m.
“Here. Drink this.”
Paige glanced away from her living room window to take the cup of hot tea from Clay’s hands. It was the third cup he’d forced on her as she’d watched the police processing the crime scene through the blinds, thinking about the flash drive in her pocket, and wondering what the hell to do.
She’d watched the videos. She knew exactly who’d taken the one of her jumping. The kid upstairs had a crush and always carried a camcorder. Once she’d caught him taping her walking Peabody late at night. She’d thought she’d scared Logan Booker from future videotaping by threatening to tell his mother. I guess not.
She hadn’t seen Elena’s flash drive handoff in Logan’s video or any of the others shot with the cell phones behind her. Thank God for Peabody. He’d kept the vultures far enough away that none of Elena’s words had been caught on tape.
Still, they’d captured Elena’s murder, her brains splattering against the windows of her van. The videos were online, viewable by anyone. Including the Muñoz family. It made Paige’s heart ache to think about them seeing Elena die.
Clay nudged her shoulder. “Drink it,” he repeated.
She sipped the tea obediently. “I’m going to float away,” she murmured.
“You should have let that doctor check you out.”
“I wasn’t hurt. Just rattled. Anyone would have been.”
“You could have been killed.” His voice was raw and she knew he was reliving finding his old partner’s body.
“But I wasn’t. And I don’t think I would have been. I’d just turned to look at Peabody when the killer pulled the trigger. A second earlier I’d been leaning over Elena.”
His eyes widened. “Like he was waiting for you to get out of the way?”
“Exactly.” She let the warmth from the cup seep into her cold fingers as she looked back to the crime scene. “The MEs are finally taking her. It’s about time.”
“It was a messy crime scene,” Clay said. “They needed to be careful.”
“‘Messy’ would be the word.”
“If you’re worried about the videos, don’t be. You’ll be an Internet sensation for a day, maybe two. Then some starlet will go into rehab and it’ll be over.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she said quietly.
“Somehow I didn’t really think so.” He was studying her intently. “So let’s get to it. You told that detective that she hadn’t said anything to you,” he said. “You lied. Why?”
Paige pulled her phone from her pocket and laid it on the windowsill. At some point her call to Clay had been terminated. She had no idea when. “How much did you hear?”
“Only you. Her voice was too faint. You asked who’d done it. What did she say?”
Paige ran her fingers over her pocket, feeling the outline of the flash drive. Abruptly she stepped back from the blinds and met his eyes. “‘Cops. Chasing me.’”
His frown was immediate and severe. “A cop shot her?”
“No. She said that a cop chased her. I assumed the chaser and the shooter were the same. Then the medics arrived and that other shot came out of fucking nowhere.”
“Same shooter?” Clay asked and she shrugged.
“I don’t know. One of my first thoughts was that the shooter had to be close, that Elena couldn’t have driven far with injuries like those.” She paused, thinking. “It might have been the same shooter, but not the same gun. The entry wounds in her torso were bigger than the final hit to her temple. The exit wounds in her body were… smaller.”
“I’d guess the final shot was made by a high-speed rifle. The cops were all over the rooftops, looking for signs of the shooter. They’re scared right now, the cops. I heard a couple of them wondering if they had another serial sniper.”
Paige frowned, not understanding, then remembered the DC sniper. “It’s been years.”
“Ten years,” Clay said harshly, “but for any of us who lived through it, it seems like yesterday. You can be sure this will stir up a lot of fear in the community.”
“Elena wasn’t a random target like the sniper’s from before,” Paige said. Sitting at her desk, she took a latex glove from her drawer of supplies and pulled it on. She brought the flash drive from her pocket, holding it flat on her palm. Elena’s blood had dried on the gadget.
“Holy hell, Paige,” Clay whispered, his eyes wide. “What is that?”
“Elena’s flash drive,” she whispered back. “She put it in my hand seconds before she died. She made me promise not to tell any cops.”
“So what? This is evidence. You can’t just sit on it.”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “Like you always rush to hand over everything to the cops? You don’t trust the cops any more than Elena did.”
His face flushed uncomfortably and Paige knew she’d scored a direct hit. Clay had known who’d killed his partner, and for a lot of reasons—not the least of which was the need for his own revenge—had held back information while he investigated on his own.
“Shit,” he mumbled. “Doesn’t mean that’s the right thing to do this time.”
“What part of cops chasing her did we miss here? I mean, who do I hand it over to? The detective who questioned me? What if he was the cop chasing her?”
“Shit,” he said again, then sighed. “What’s on the damn thing?”
“I don’t know. She died before she could tell me. Whatever it is, somebody killed her over it.” Paige held it under the desk lamp. “I hope whatever’s on here is readable.”
“You’re going to plug that thing into your computer?” he asked, eyes even wider.
“What, worried about viruses?”
“Along with about a million other things. Look, I did keep information from the cops after I found Nicki’s body, and I was wrong. People died, Paige.”
Paige leveled him a hard stare. “Elena thought the cops planted evidence against Ramon. What if this is proof? The man is in prison for murder, Clay. Now his wife is dead. You can stay or go, but I’m going to see what’s on this damn drive.”
“And if the cops somehow find out?”
“I’ll say I was stunned. In shock. That I couldn’t remember getting it and didn’t check my pocket until later to find it. So stay or go. Choose and make it quick.”
He rolled his eyes. “You know I won’t go. Hell.”
“Okay.” She opened a box next to her desk and Clay whistled.
“How many laptops do you have in there?”
“Six.” She pulled one out. “Rich kids at the university in Minneapolis throw them out when they get a new one. These old machines are useful if you’re checking out any file that might be a risk. If there’s a virus, you can wipe the drive and not risk your own PC.”
“How did you get them?” he asked suspiciously.
“Friends who are students. They Dumpster-dive occasionally. They’re geeks.”
“And hackers?” he asked dryly.
“Of course.” She plugged the drive in the USB port and it opened quickly. “Yes,” she whispered.
“That’s a lot of files,” Clay said, looking over her shoulder.
“Most of them are old, except for these three picture files—saved three hours ago.” She opened one and stared at the photo of two men drinking beer at a bar. “Bingo.”
“It’s a bar,” Clay said.
“It’s the bar,” Paige corrected, “where Ramon
Muñoz claimed he’d been the night of the murder. Ramon’s on the left and the time stamped in the corner is the same time he was supposed to be murdering a college girl on the other side of town.”
“Time codes can be faked.”
“Yes, they can. But this picture never made it into the trial exhibits.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve studied every page of the transcripts. Ramon said he was there with a friend.”
“The guy next to him?”
“Yes. The friend denied seeing him there that night, as did the bar owner. Under oath.” Paige opened the other two picture files. The first showed two men exchanging a piece of paper. “The guy taking the paper is the bar owner, Denny Sandoval. He’s looking up at the camera, like he’s posing almost.”
“His insurance policy,” Clay said quietly. “Who’s the guy with the fake mustache giving the paper to the bar owner?”
“I don’t know. The mustache is cheesy, but it does the job of disguising his face.”
“Nice hands,” Clay noted. “The guy gets regular manicures.”
Paige zoomed in on the man’s hands. “And wears a pinkie ring. Maybe a diamond, but it’s too grainy to be sure.” The third file was a receipt. “Wire transfer. Lots of zeros.”
“Fifty Gs would be enough to get a lot of guys to lie under oath.”
“And enough to kill a woman who found out about it?” she asked.
“I’ve known murderers to kill for a lot less. Look, I know you told me about this case when you first took it a month ago, but all I really remember is that Ramon’s in jail for murder and his mama thinks he’s innocent. Tell me the details again. Who do they say Ramon murdered?”
“A college girl named Crystal Jones. She’d gone to a party at a big estate where Ramon worked as head gardener. She was found dead the next morning in the gardener’s shed, strangled, then stabbed to death. One of the pruning shears was missing. Cops found the shears in the closet in Ramon and Elena’s bedroom. They said most of the blood had been wiped off, but there was enough to do a DNA check and link the shears to the dead woman. They also found one of Ramon’s hairs on her dress.”
“Pretty damning stuff.”
“I know. Plus there was a note found on the body. ‘Gardener’s shed, midnight.’ Signed ‘RM.’ Ramon said it wasn’t his. Handwriting analysis was inconclusive. Ramon claimed he was innocent, that he had an alibi, but nobody would confirm it.”
“The DNA on the weapon gave the prosecution a slam dunk.”
“Exactly. Ramon was the gardener—he had access to the shed and the shears.”
“Did he live on the estate?”
“No, the job didn’t include living quarters. He and Elena had an apartment about a mile from Maria’s house. But he had a key for the back gate, so he had access. The prosecutor presented Ramon as a player, that he killed this woman when she teased him, then wouldn’t give him sex. The jury came back in a few hours. Guilty on all counts. Maria met me after I moved into this apartment. She was cleaning one morning and we got to talking. When she found out I was a PI—”
“In training,” Clay interrupted.
“In training,” Paige acknowledged. “She and Elena begged me to help them. They were so sure someone was dirty. That the cops were involved. Elena said she’d get proof. She did.”
“What made them believe cops were involved? What did the cops do?”
“Maria said people in the neighborhood avoided them after Ramon was arrested. There were whispers that they’d been intimidated by the cops on the case to keep quiet, but nobody would tell her the truth. Elena believed that the bloody shears and the note that was found on the body were planted.”
“Who were the investigating detectives?”
“Gillespie and Morton. This was all six years ago. Morton is still Homicide, but Gillespie retired a few years ago.”
His eyes flickered for the barest instant. “Who was the prosecutor?”
“Assistant State’s Attorney Grayson Smith.”
“I’ve heard of him. Never met him.”
“Me either. I did check out his record, though. Smith has the best conviction rate in his office. But he didn’t have to work hard in this case. The evidence all pointed to Ramon as being guilty.”
“So what’s next?”
Paige transferred all three picture files from Elena’s flash drive to her old computer’s hard drive. She then removed Elena’s drive and dropped it back in her pocket. “I’m going to put this computer in my safe, then I’m going to put this coat in a plastic bag. If I decide to hand over the drive later, I can say I put the coat in a bag until I could launder it, then found the drive when I was cleaning out my pockets.”
She bit her lip as she bagged the coat. “I want to do the right thing. I just don’t know who I can trust. I tell the wrong person and I could end up like Elena.”
“Was Detective Perkins involved in Ramon’s investigation?”
“His name wasn’t in the court records, but that doesn’t mean anything. Who knows who he knows? Has loyalties to? You’ve lived here for years. Do you have any cops you can trust? I mean, really, with-your-life trust? Because we’re talking my life now.”
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. S
o 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.”