by Rick Reed
“We’ll compare the prints on the knob against Eric’s,” Walker said.
“What else?” Jack asked.
“Well, besides the missing clothes and luggage, there’s only a small amount of makeup in the bathroom. No medications in the medicine cabinet. Her purse is gone. There are no towels in the bathroom. No dirty clothes. No trash. The carpeting in the living room and two bedrooms show signs they were vacuumed recently, but I didn’t find a vacuum cleaner. There’s plenty of food in the refrigerator, including fresh fruit and vegetables.”
“Do you think she was killed here?” Jack asked.
“Dr. John said the hyoid bone was broken. That usually means strangulation, and that may have happened here based on the blood we found. Maybe her head was knocked into the bricks. One of my techs found some hair stuck to the mortar.”
Jack rubbed his chin, and asked, “Do you remember Lenny Sturdevant?”
Walker said, “Married policeman, on duty, visits his girlfriend and beats her to death, then kills her cat and puts both bodies on her bed and sets the bed on fire. That Lenny Sturdevant?”
Jack had forgotten Walker helped work the case before he transferred to the Crime Scene Unit. “Yeah. He went back to the house after he killed her and set the bedroom on fire. If he hadn’t gone back, we probably never would have caught him. He had the perfect alibi because he was working—on patrol—and his beat was clear across town.”
“Are you trying to make a comparison with this murder?”
“My point is that he was a policeman. He thought he had committed the perfect crime, but when he didn’t hear the fire department being dispatched to his girlfriend’s house, he got worried. Then he started wondering if he had left something behind. His anxiety made him go back. That’s why he was caught.”
Walker cocked his head to the side. “Are you thinking Eric did this?”
“Think about it. It’s a fact that most killings are done by someone close to the victim. A husband. A lover. A family member. A coworker. And Eric’s reputation as a skirt chaser has to be considered. We can’t prove it yet, but I can think of a handful of motives for him to kill her.”
Liddell grinned. “The way I heard it, if you tested the bed sheets of half the women working with Eric, they would test positive for the presence of Eric.” Realizing what he’d said, he added, “Sorry, pod’na. That was uncalled for.”
Jack waved the comment off. “I don’t really think he’s capable of it, but he fits the profile. He found the body, he lied about having a key or at least knowing where the key was hidden, he has a reputation of philandering, and he would have the knowledge it would take to sanitize the crime scene.”
“But that’s assuming Eric and Nina were doing the nasty, which is an unknown,” Walker reminded him. “And whoever did this had to cut Nina up and take her body parts to the landfill. I just can’t see him doing that.”
Jack knew Walker was right. Eric wouldn’t have the guts to do all of that. Besides, a first-time killer didn’t usually dismember his victim. Like drinking Scotch, dismembering was an acquired taste. Of course, there was always the exception.
No, Eric’s a jerk, and maybe he was even Nina’s secret lover, but the man is just too prissy to be a killer. That’s why I can’t imagine what Katie saw in him in the first place—with his tea-sipping, manicured, Ivy League mannerisms.
“I guess we’re through here for now, Bigfoot. Tony, you know where to find us,” Jack said. Walker nodded and left them on the porch to discuss their next steps.
“Maybe Garcia’s computers can turn up something,” Liddell said hopefully.
“Maybe. In the meantime, we have a granny to visit.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She hailed from a long-ago era, when visitors were still invited to come inside and proper etiquette was observed. True to her upbringing, she insisted the detectives let her serve them tea. They followed her through to the kitchen and Jack noticed the table was already set for three, complete with a steaming teapot. The tray and three tiny spoons were silver, and the cups, saucers, and teapot looked like very old and expensive china. The smell of something baking filled the air.
“Call me Laney,” the old woman said, using the end of the apron she wore to dab at the tears brought on by their news of Nina’s death. “Poor girl.”
“Mrs. Alvarez—Laney—you needn’t trouble yourself. We only have a few questions,” Jack said.
Laney’s features were as delicate as her china, with skin the color and smoothness of porcelain except for the wrinkles beside her eyes. She moved slowly but with grace and poise. Thick white hair spun around the top of her head like cotton candy. Her eyes were dark blue and alert.
She was the lady Jack had seen sitting on her front porch earlier pretending not to notice all the police vehicles. But, as he had suspected then, her shrewd eyes didn’t miss a thing. Eric must have thought so, too, or he wouldn’t have coughed up the key so easily.
“I’m ninety-three years old tomorrow,” she said proudly, and then, shoulders sagging, said, “Please, I need to sit.”
The detectives instinctively moved forward, each taking an arm with Jack pulling one of the chairs away from the table, easing her into it.
She folded her hands atop the table, fingers laced tightly, head down, taking slow and deliberate breaths. Then she looked up, unlaced her fingers and announced, “I’m okay. You boys sit. I’ve made you a fresh batch of cookies. You must be thirsty and hungry.”
Jack didn’t even have to look at his partner’s face. She had Liddell when she mentioned the cookies.
“May I pour the tea, Laney?” Jack asked, and was rewarded with a smile.
“I’ve already sweetened it. I hope you like it sweet,” she said.
Jack and Liddell sat down and took a sip of the scalding hot tea. It was sweet and strong, and the floral fragrance rising from the cup reminded Jack of his own mother and time spent with her in the kitchen as a child.
Laney sniffed the air and said, “The cookies are ready.” She asked Liddell, “Would you take those out of the oven? We wouldn’t want them to burn, and my old legs are tired.”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t mind at all,” Liddell said, and jumped up. He found a kitchen mitt hanging on the oven door, and when he pulled the baking tray from the oven, the room filled with a mouth-watering smell.
“I don’t put them on a cookie rack to cool,” she explained, and instructed Liddell to slide the fist-sized oatmeal-raisin-walnut cookies onto a serving tray. “They’re much better when they almost burn your mouth.”
When Liddell rejoined them, Jack said, “Mrs. Alvarez, thank you for your hospitality, but I’m sure you can understand that we’re working and time is important.”
“Please, call me Laney,” she said. “If you sit with me a spell, Detective Murphy, I’ll answer your questions.” She added, “On CSI: Miami, that nice Lieutenant Caine—he’s played by David Caruso, the actor—always takes time with his witnesses.”
She took Jack’s silence for submission and said to Liddell, “You can have all of the cookies you want. You look like you’re starving. I see you’re married, Detective Blanchard. You tell that wife of yours to feed you more.” She beamed a smile and pushed the tray closer to him.
“She’d kill me, Missus . . . Laney,” Liddell said, and helped himself to several cookies.
She dipped a cookie in her tea and tasted it. “That young woman called, looking for Nina, and you know, I didn’t want to get Nina in trouble in case she had overslept. These young people don’t appreciate having a job nowadays, but Nina wasn’t one of them. I can’t imagine her not going to work. Except . . .”
“Except what?” Jack asked.
Laney sat up straight, and locked her hands together in her lap.
“What is it?” Liddell prodded.
“That’s not the way you do it. You have to tell me to spit it out.” She put her hands on the table and fidgeted with the cookie tray. “Well, I’l
l spit it out. You don’t have to grill me.”
Jack and Liddell exchanged a look but remained silent.
“A black Mercedes would come late at night and park at the dark end of the street. Not under the streetlights down at this end. I’ve complained to the homeowners association about the streetlights, I can tell you.”
“Black Mercedes,” Jack repeated.
Laney gathered her thoughts and continued, “Yes. One man. Always late at night. He would get out of the car and look up and down the street, then hurry straight to Nina’s door and go inside.” She leaned in conspiratorially, and said, “Nina keeps a spare key on top of the porch light beside the door.”
“Did you ever see the man use a key, or was Nina waiting for him?” Jack asked.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to . . . you know. She was a good girl. Always quiet. And kept her yard so nice. We would visit from time to time.”
Jack didn’t understand where she was going with this and then remembered Mrs. Alvarez had come from a different time, when it was ruinous to a woman’s reputation to be seen cavorting with a man.
“This will just be between us three,” Jack assured her, and saw her visibly relax.
“He had his own key,” she said, and scowled as if she had drunk something bitter. “I saw walk right up to the door and use it once or twice, but I think most of the time she let him in.” She put a hand to her mouth and said with a slight shake of her head, “What respectable person would sneak around in the dark like that? But if something was going on, it was his doing. Not hers.”
Liddell forgot the cookies. He got out his notebook and scribbled something. “You’re doing good, Laney,” he said encouragingly.
She continued. “That went on for several months, but then the man quit coming about awhile back. I didn’t see him or that car again until last night.”
“Excuse me. What time was it when you saw the car?” Jack asked.
She said without hesitation, “It was a few minutes after ten o’clock. Jay Leno had just come on when I heard the commotion going on at Nina’s. My hearing is perfectly fine. Nina’s house was the only one that had lights on.”
“Can you describe the car?” Jack asked.
“A newer Mercedes. Black. We owned one until six years ago when my husband passed away. Of course, this one was newer than ours,” she said. Liddell wrote it all down.
“And you’re sure that was the same car last night?” Jack asked.
“As sure as I can be,” she said. “But I didn’t see him this time,” she reminded the detectives.
“Okay. Please tell us what happened last night, Mrs. Alvarez?” Jack said.
“Please call me Laney,” she insisted, and Jack remained patient.
“I didn’t see him, but I saw his car parked where it always parked when he visited her. I was kind of surprised because it had been so long. Anyway, I was watching Jay on the television and the only reason I noticed was because of the loud voices. I heard Nina and a man. The man was yelling at her and she yelled at him, but I couldn’t hear any of the words. They both sounded angry.”
“Where were you when you first heard the argument?” Jack asked.
Laney looked at him quizzically. “I was in my house. I told you that,” she answered.
“Okay. What drew your attention to the arguing? Where were you when you first heard noticed the arguing? In the living room? Kitchen?”
“I was sitting in the rocker in the living room.” She pointed to a wooden rocker facing the television. “My back hurts something terrible when I sit on the sofa. I told Mort—that was my husband’s name—I told Mort to get rid of that sofa, but he was so frugal he refused. Then he passed and I didn’t have the heart. I just put the rocker in the room.” She looked wistfully at the couch.
“Laney,” Jack said, drawing her back. “So you were sitting in the rocker and . . .”
“Then I heard voices. They were so loud I could hear them over the television. I cracked the curtains and looked outside, but there was no one. I listened and could tell it was coming from Nina’s house.
“The arguing went on for a few minutes and then it just stopped. It was quiet for a long time, and I kept watching, but the man didn’t leave, so I assumed they made up, and—you know?”
“And then what happened?” Jack asked.
“It was quite a bit later. I had some hot chocolate and was sitting right here at the table when I heard an engine start up. I went to look out the front, and by the time I got to the window Nina’s car was pulling out of her driveway.”
“Was the man’s car—her visitor’s car—parked at the end of the street still?”
“No. It must have left. It’s funny that I didn’t hear it leave, but then I never heard it arrive either. I didn’t see anyone driving, if that’s what you were going to ask. And—”
“Are you sure it was Nina’s car?” Jack interrupted. “The one you saw leaving?”
She nodded. “She drives a dark green Ford Taurus. It needs a new muffler. My husband used to work on cars, so I know that much.”
“Did the car that was leaving Nina’s driveway have a loud muffler?” Liddell asked, biting into the last cookie on the tray, and then wiping crumbs from around his mouth and off the front of his shirt.
“Now that you mention it,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t think it did.”
Jack stood and motioned to Liddell that they should leave.
“You didn’t let me finish, Detective Murphy,” Laney said.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, and sat back down. “Please continue.”
“You asked if I saw the black car at the end of the street when I looked out the second time. I didn’t see it. It was gone,” she said. “But there was another car parked there. It was a sports car, but I can’t tell you what kind. And I’ve never seen it around here before, or since.”
Thirty minutes and many, many, cookies later, they left Laney Alvarez behind and headed back downtown. Liddell drove.
“She’s single,” Jack observed.
“Tempting, but man doesn’t live by cookies alone. Besides, Marcie would kill me if she knew I ate so many cookies.”
“Or that you have your pocket full of them?” Jack suggested.
Liddell patted his pocket, and said, “Well, Murphy’s Law says, ‘Waste not, want not.’”
Jack wasn’t that interested in the subject, though. “What did she tell us that we didn’t know?”
“Well, we confirmed that Cindy McCoy called Laney this morning when Nina didn’t show up for work,” Liddell said. “And Laney heard loud voices coming from Nina’s around ten-fifteen last night. Her hearing seemed pretty good to me.”
“Her eyesight is excellent, too. She wasn’t wearing glasses and she saw the hunger in your eyes and drool dripping from your slack jaws.”
“Wow. That’s just mean, pod’na,” Liddell said.
“She saw a black newer model Mercedes sedan at the end of her block, so we’ll have to check with the neighbors again to see if anyone owns it, or anyone saw it. Several hours after the disturbance she looked out again and the Mercedes was gone, but a silver convertible sports car was parked there, and Nina’s car was driving out of her driveway about midnight.”
“Nina owns a dark green Mercury Sable,” Jack said.
“What do you make of the black Mercedes?
“Eric owns a black Mercedes,” Jack said.
“Are you hoping to get rid of the competition?”
Jack shot him an angry look, and said, “She saw a dark sedan that may or may not have been a Mercedes Benz. The man she described sounded a lot like Eric,” Jack answered. “And he has a reputation for philandering.”
Liddell conceded that Laney’s description matched Eric, and the man’s reputation wasn’t good.
“Are we going to show her a photo lineup?” Liddell asked.
Jack shook his head. “It was dark. Even if we got an ID from her, a defense attorney would eat us up
because of her age. Not to mention the shit storm we’d start downtown when politics got involved. And you know Eric would find out. We still don’t know who the leak is. Or who they’re working for.”
Jack thought through what they’d heard, and then raised another point. “She said the man was there several times a week, always about the same time of night, and Nina seemed to be waiting.”
“Sounds like a booty call,” Liddell suggested, and Jack nodded in agreement.
The man stopped coming about a month ago. That was about the same time Eric and Katie got together.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Book strummed his fingers on the van’s dash, his posture stiff and alert as he watched the building entrance. Clint was in the driver’s seat, feet on the dash, playing a game of Scrabble against himself on his iPhone.
“Is S-P-L-O-D-E a word?” he asked Book.
“Yeah,” Book answered. “Like in ‘I’m going to splode if you don’t shut that damn thing off.’”
“Good one, Book,” Clint said absently. He dragged his finger around the iPhone’s screen. “Nah, that don’t work.” He poked a button and the screen went blank.
Clint looked through the tinted side window toward the Fares Avenue strip club where a small trailer held a flashing marquee that read, BUSYBODY. Under that in foot-high red letters were the words Live Girls.
“Hey, Book. See that sign?” Clint pointed at the trailer. “If they were dead girls, they wouldn’t be dancing, would they?” he said, and Book laughed.
“One of those girls will be dead soon, buddy. Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Book muttered.
Soon enough the door to the strip joint opened, and a hammer-blast of music accompanied a pretty blond girl outside.
SUX, the shortened name of the chemical compound succinylcholine, causes immediate muscle paralysis. In small amounts it is used during surgery by an anesthesiologist. But Clint knew the dose Book had in mind would stop their breathing altogether.