by Andrea Kane
There was an interesting tie-in here. One that had surprised him. Tomorrow morning he’d follow up on it, peel back every layer to see if there was something solid at the core. If it materialized into a real lead, he’d mention it in the update he’d be delivering to Congressman Shore on Monday.
“Hey.” Sally sat up in bed, blinking as she reached over to rub Monty’s arm. “Aren’t you ever planning on turning off that light and getting some sleep?”
He angled his head toward her, and his features softened at the sight of her, all wrapped up in the down comforter with just her bare shoulders peeking out. Tenderly, he rumpled her already-tousled hair, brushing it around to the nape of her neck. Her skin was warm from sleep, and she looked sated and drowsy from their earlier lovemaking.
“You dozed off, so I was getting a little work done. I’ll turn in.” He shoved the papers into the file and put it on his night table. Then he clicked off the lamp, sliding down in the bed and settling Sally against him, her head on his chest.
“It’s the Winter case,” she stated. “It’s hitting you harder than even you expected.”
“Yeah.” Frowning, Monty stared up at the ceiling. “And not just because of the compassion I feel for Morgan Winter, or the guilt I’m dealing with knowing I screwed up and let the real killer get away. It’s more selfish and personal than that. This investigation is taking me back to the lowest point in my life—a point I try hard to forget.”
“I know,” Sally acknowledged softly. “But life doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes it just drags us back to the past whether or not we want to go.”
“That much I get. What I don’t get is why I let our family fall apart.”
“Our family didn’t fall apart, Pete. We did. And neither of us let it happen. We made a decision. At that time, we each needed such different things. Our priorities were diametrically opposed. Our relationship was a mess. Ending the marriage was the only answer at the time. But we all survived. You and I even found our way back to each other.”
“That part I’m grateful as hell for.” He blew out a breath. “As for the rest, don’t let me off the hook so easily. It wasn’t quite that simple. Those different priorities existed because I was an idiot. I really believed I could give my all to the force and still be what you and the kids needed. Even after the split, I told myself I could compartmentalize my life and make it all work. It didn’t. And the kids took the major hit.”
“Kids always get hurt the most in a divorce,” Sally agreed. “On the other hand, they also get hurt living in an atmosphere of constant stress and arguing.”
“That’s what the textbooks say.” Monty’s retort was dry. “Who knows if they’re right. In the meantime, I bought the idea that I could be a visiting father and still keep that same tight bond the kids and I always shared. Talk about a farce. Lane couldn’t wait to leave for college. Then he moved to the other side of the country and jumped headfirst into a thrill-a-minute, no-personal-ties career. He’s too goddamned much like me, and I can’t do a thing about it.”
“Pete…”
“Then there’s Devon. She ping-ponged back and forth between you and me, torn with guilt over where her love and her loyalties belonged. And Merry? She hadn’t even started kindergarten. She understood zip about why I left. In her mind, her daddy had abandoned her. She reacted by shutting me out. It’s only now that she’s starting to come around. The whole situation sucked.”
“You’re right. It did,” Sally surprised him by saying. “But not just for the kids. For you. I watched your face every time you brought them home. Living apart from them was killing you.”
Monty swallowed. “I never knew you could miss anyone like that; like a piece of you had been ripped out. I became more of a machine than a human being. I worked, I drank, and I made myself emotionally numb.”
“No, you didn’t.” Sally twisted around to gaze up at him. “First of all, stop making it sound like you abandoned the kids. You didn’t. Your door—and your heart—were always open, whether or not you realized it. As for desensitizing yourself of all feeling, that’s bull. Why do you think you were able to give so much to Morgan Winter? You channeled all that emotional energy you claim not to have had into empathy for her. Look at the good that came out of it. Because of the way you identified with her sense of isolation and loss, she pulled through a tragedy that might otherwise have destroyed her.”
With a disbelieving shake of his head, Monty studied his wife. “How do you do it? After all these years, all we’ve been through, you still manage to find a silver lining in every situation. The way you view life, with such upbeat idealism—it never ceases to amaze me.”
Sally’s eyes twinkled. “That’s why you fell in love with me, remember? You always said I was the perfect counterpart for a cynical cop.”
“Damn straight. I was right. And, at times like these, I need all the idealism I can get.”
All teasing vanished. “You’ll solve the case, Pete. I know you will. Just invest your energy into making that happen. Making peace with the past will come naturally, and in its own time.”
“In other words, fix what’s in my power to fix and leave the rest alone.”
“Don’t leave it, learn from it. Savor what you have, and what you’ve rediscovered.” She bent down, pressed her lips gently to his. “Start by telling me you love me. Then let that overactive mind of yours get some sleep so you can tackle the world in the morning. Think you can manage that?”
He gave her a hard squeeze, then pressed her closer to his side. “Yeah,” he murmured, burying his lips in her hair. “Piece of cake.”
NINE
The problem with the weekend was that it gave Morgan too much time to think.
Saturday morning was spoken for. She had a 9 a.m. session with Dr. Bloom. Then she arrived home to find several messages from her friends, suggesting they get together. But she wasn’t in the mood. Even Jill couldn’t coax her out.
Instead, Morgan spent most of Saturday going through her parents’ things again. She realized she was grasping at straws, but she couldn’t get past the hope that she might stumble on some sort of clue, something that could point them in the right direction.
All she succeeded in doing was driving herself crazy, and triggering waves of nostalgia by poring over old photos.
She finally settled on something positive—her mother’s journal. Reading through it gave her a sense of connection. It also provided insight into the branch of Winshore she was dedicating to her mother’s memory.
A great number of Lara’s entries referred to Healthy Healing, a women’s counseling center not far from the Brooklyn shelter Lara had run. Barbara Stevens, Healthy Healing’s main psychologist and a close colleague of Lara’s, was a name that came up again and again—no surprise, given how closely and often they had worked together.
A lump forming in her throat, Morgan studied her mother’s handwriting—the flowing letters, the achingly familiar use of circles to dot her i’s. There was so much she remembered, yet so much she’d never learn. She’d give anything to know her mother now that she herself was an adult, mature enough to build a friendship with a woman capable of bringing so much richness to life.
Her gaze settled on Barbara’s name, and on impulse, Morgan picked up the phone, punching in Healthy Healing’s phone number. It was Saturday. She’d probably get voice mail, in which case she’d request a weekday appointment.
To her surprise, the receptionist answered and told her that Barbara was in. She asked for Morgan’s name, then offered to put the call through.
Morgan jumped at the opportunity. She repeated her name to the receptionist and asked if Barbara had a few minutes to see her today. She might not be able to solve her parents’ homicides, but she could do something to feel closer to them. And maybe, in the process, she’d pick up a scrap of information that would help the investigation. Maybe her mother had mentioned something to Barbara in those final days, something seemingly innocuous that re
ferred to one of her father’s current cases, or a previous case in which a convicted felon had resurfaced and was harassing him.
It was worth a shot. And, even if it yielded nothing, it would give her a chance to meet a woman who’d meant a great deal to her mother, and to hear personal stories about Lara.
Barbara had time to see her, and a half hour later Morgan buttoned her coat and left her brownstone, Metrocard in hand.
SEVEN BLOCKS AWAY, Monty settled himself on Lane’s living room sofa, plopping the Winter file down beside him. He wanted to hear all about Lane’s meeting last night with Arthur Shore. But first things first.
Taking a belt of the coffee his son had brewed, he leaned over the rectangular cherrywood coffee table and laid out the twenty crime-scene photos, arranging them directly in front of his son. “I called Puzzle Palace about the negatives,” he informed Lane. “They’re working on digging them out.”
The term “Puzzle Palace” needed no further explanation. There wasn’t an insider in the department who didn’t use that nickname for the NYPD’s headquarters at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan.
“Any time frame?” Lane asked.
“With enough pressure, I’ll have them for you on Monday. In the meantime, take a look at these.” He pointed.
Lane perched on the edge of the sofa and hunched forward, studying the shots. “Not bad,” he muttered. “A few photos of the gunshot wounds are a little overexposed. Probably too much flash. Nothing I can’t compensate for.” He continued his scrutiny. “Okay, talk to me about what you found when you arrived at the scene. Describe everything I’m looking at. Later, we’ll get to what I’m looking for.”
The question was standard—business as usual when Lane and Monty worked together.
“The crime took place in the basement of a shitty building on Williams Avenue in Brooklyn,” Monty began. “You can see for yourself—broken cement floor, chipped walls; your basic dump. The row of photos closest to you was taken first, before anything was touched or either of the bodies moved.” Monty pointed to the ten photographs in question. “There were three shell casings from a Walther PPK found, which ballistics matched up with the two bullets in Jack Winter and the one bullet in his wife. Jack was shot execution style—facedown, two bullets to the back of his head. There are obvious signs of a struggle; overturned chairs, a scattered stack of two-by-fours, construction buckets knocked around. Lara Winter was shot once in the side.”
“That’s why there’s so much blood and organ damage.” Lane was studying the close-up photos of Lara’s body and the scaled photo of her bullet wound.
“Yeah, the perp did a good job of blowing out her insides. Judging from her position—twisted to the right with that two-by-four next to her body—she tried to defend herself. He shot her while she was swinging.” Monty indicated the wood board lying a few feet away from Lara’s crumpled body. “Her fingerprints were on the two-by-four. My guess is she grabbed the board either to try stopping the guy from waling on her husband, or to fend him off when he turned the gun on her. The bullet struck her from about ten feet away. Jack was shot at a much closer range.”
Lane pursed his lips, glancing from the initial photos to the others, taken after the bodies had been shifted and photographed from other angles. “A struggle? I’d say there was more of a knock-down, drag-out fight. Jack Winter’s face is a mess.”
“That’s misleading. I’m sure he and the perp exchanged punches, but most of the gashes and gouged-out holes you see on his face came from his impact with the floor. Like I said, the place was a dump—broken chunks of cement, stones, pieces of wood, you name it. The M.E. found a contusion on the left side of Jack’s head; the imprint was from the Walther PPK. So Jack must have lunged at the perp, catching him off guard. The perp would instinctively take his first swing while he was still clutching the gun, so it clipped Jack’s head, then went flying. They fought. At some point Jack either fell or was shoved down on his face. The perp pinned him down, recovered the gun, and shot him.”
“Execution style—that’s why you thought this was personal,” Lane mused.
“It usually is, with that scenario. On the other hand, could it have been coincidental? A robbery gone bad? Sure.” Monty gave a grunt of disgust. “What else can I tell you? Judging by the angle and shape of the contusion and the fact that it was on the left side of Jack’s head, we know the perp was right-handed—just like ninety percent of the rest of the world.”
“And sometime during this struggle, Lara tried to save her husband and/or herself by grabbing the two-by-four and swinging at the assailant.”
“Getting herself shot to death in the process.”
“What about the gun? Was it ever recovered?”
“Nope. Of course, Schiller claimed to have dumped it in the river. But since his confession was bogus, so was his story about the murder weapon. So where the gun is now is anyone’s guess.”
Lane acknowledged that with a nod. “Moving on, we have blood splatter and blood on the victims’ clothing. Jewelry and wallets missing. What about fingerprints? Did you find any that were distinguishable?”
“Just the victims’. And even those were smudged, other than the ones on the two-by-four, which were definitely Lara’s. There were a bunch of footprints, most too blurry to make out. Remember, it was cold and snowy that December. The shelter was heated. Which meant we found lots of melted snow puddles, and lots of rats. Not exactly the best conditions for pulling physical evidence. The few footprints we could make out—not counting the victims’—belonged to a size-ten men’s Dunham Waffle Stomper. A popular men’s shoe size, and a popular hiking boot. Plus no guarantee it belonged to the perp.” Monty grimaced. “What better, more ironic proof than the fact that Nate Schiller owned a pair.”
“Talk about being screwed,” Lane muttered. “There you were, dead in the water again.”
“Huh?” Monty arched a quizzical brow.
Lane inclined his head, regarding his father with that wise, probing look. “You just couldn’t catch a break. No wonder you were so pissed off.”
“I’m not following.”
“I was sixteen, Monty. I remember. You were never on board with the theory that Schiller did it. Not really. I heard you on the phone—with your precinct, with the D.A., with everyone involved with the case. I remember you kept repeating that the pieces just didn’t fit. Something felt off. I didn’t get the whole picture; not then. But now, hearing the lack of tangible evidence, I can imagine how frustrated you felt. The D.A. had nothing but Schiller’s confession and pressure to solve the case. You had a gut feeling that contradicted both. Too bad they didn’t listen.”
Monty leaned back against the sofa cushion, folding his arms across his chest, his forehead creased in surprise. “I never realized you were so plugged into my work.”
It was Lane’s turn to look surprised. “You’ve got to be kidding. You knew how much I looked up to you.”
“Yeah, but like you said, you were sixteen. We barely saw each other, even on our scheduled weekends. You were either on a ski trip or with a girl. I didn’t have the slightest idea you listened to my phone calls, or paid attention to my caseload.”
“Paid attention?” A corner of Lane’s mouth lifted. “I hung on every word. You were one hell of a role model.”
“I was a jackass.” Monty jumped on the chance to speak his piece. “It took me half a lifetime to realize what was important. Don’t emulate me, not in those ways.”
“It’s a little late, Monty.” Lane gave an offhand shrug. “I am who I am. But don’t be so hard on yourself. You were a great father. You still are. Pig-headed as hell, but great. How about taking some advice from your adult son? Stop viewing things in such a binary fashion. If I’ve learned anything from my career, it’s that very little is black-and-white. Images, photographs—it’s all about shades of gray. And since life imitates art…well, you get the drift.”
“Yeah.” Monty felt a tremendous surge of pride at the
man his son had become. “I get the drift. I’ll try to bear it in mind.” He cleared his throat, reverting to the original topic. “So, is that everything you need to know about the crime-scene photos?”
“For now. I’ve got lots to work with. The bodies. The blood splatters. The basement. The exterior of the building. Once I get the negatives, I’ll scan them all into my computer. Then I’ll bust my ass until I find something to show you. Something that’ll help you put the real killer away.”
“That’s what I want to hear. And not just for my sake.”
“Right.” Lane lowered his gaze, staring at the rug. “I met Morgan Winter last night. I see why you feel for her. It’s obvious she’s going through hell.”
“Did you tell her you’re working with me?”
“No. Before she showed up, Congressman Shore specifically asked me to steer clear of the subject. As it is, Morgan’s pretty obsessed with this investigation. The reason she was late getting to the Shores was that she stopped by the D.A.’s office to drop off copies of some newspapers clippings. But you already know that. She said she’d given you the originals.”
A nod. “They’re articles about her father’s more noteworthy arrests. I’ve dug up some pretty interesting facts from them—some of which I’ll need to clarify with Congressman Shore at Monday’s meeting.”
“Okay, now you’ve aroused my curiosity. Anything you can run by me now?”
Monty got that intense homicide-detective look. “Jack Winter put away a big-time drug and weapons dealer named Carl Angelo a few months before the murders. Angelo had quite an entourage on his payroll over the years. I did some research, going way back. Thirty years ago, Angelo hired a twenty-six-year-old piece of street scum to transport hot guns for him. The guy was caught in the act and arrested. The charges were dropped. The file is sealed.”
“Someone cut a deal.”
“Sure looks that way. And this scum and Jack Winter must have built a long-term relationship, one that included testifying against Angelo at his trial.”