by K. L. Murphy
Harding’s knuckles whitened. Sweat dripped from his temple and trailed down to his chin. His jaw rolled through gritted teeth.
Cancini shrugged and read from his notebook. “Your wife appears to be extremely accident-prone.” A light sheen of perspiration covered Harding’s face, but his expression remained unchanged. “According to several folks at the church, you’re a little possessive. That’s understandable, of course. She’s a very attractive woman.” Harding flinched. “Very attractive,” he repeated. Harding’s hands curled. “I also understand you’ve gotten into a few scuffles—one at work, another at a bar where you had to pay for damages.” Harding’s face froze. “Taking all that into account, you can see how I might have a few questions about your wife’s accidents.” The man’s hands clenched and unclenched in his lap. “Would you like to explain your behavior?”
Harding’s head sagged and rolled from side to side. “No, no, no, no.”
Cancini shot a questioning look at Smitty. His partner shook his head.
“Mr. Harding? Are you saying you don’t want to explain?”
The man lifted his head. “I can’t.” He came to his feet, jerking his head from side to side as though physically erasing something from his mind. “I need to go.”
“We’re not the only ones who might be interested in your wife’s accidents. I’m trying to give you the opportunity to clear things up.”
Harding’s breath whistled through his nose.
“Mr. Harding?” Cancini asked. “It’s time to tell the truth.”
His hands fell to the table, and he leaned forward, his breathing heavy. “If my wife says she fell, she fell.”
Cancini’s jaw tightened. “Did she fall on her own, Mr. Harding, or did she have some help?”
Harding’s eyes bugged, and his fist crashed against the table. The untouched sandwich rolled to the floor. Smitty jumped to his feet, his right hand pushing back his jacket to reveal his weapon.
Cancini uncrossed his arms, his face steely. “I’d like you to sit down, Mr. Harding.”
“I’d rather stand.”
Cancini’s face darkened. “Sit down.”
The man held Cancini’s gaze a moment longer, his barrel chest visibly rising and falling. His breathing quieted, and his color returned to a more normal hue. With a napkin, he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I know my wife would never accuse me of doing . . . doing what you’ve been saying. Why am I here?”
“Your wife doesn’t need to accuse you, Mr. Harding. All we need is a doctor’s report, anything that makes her injuries appear suspicious enough to investigate.” He paused, letting the words sink in.
“I would never intentionally hurt my wife. I love her,” Harding said, his voice only a whisper.
At the end of the table, Smitty snorted. Harding glanced at the young man once, started to say something, then dropped his chin to his chest. Cancini had heard abusers claim love before. He’d heard denials followed by teary apologies and empty promises. Often, there was even a kernel of truth in those apologies, just before it started again. Cancini changed tacks. “Just for the sake of argument, let’s say we’re not here to talk about your wife’s long list of accidents. We have a few other questions.”
“What questions?”
“I don’t think you were entirely honest with us about where you were on Sunday night, the night Father Holland was murdered.” The large man shrank in his chair. “I’ve got witnesses who say you were seated at the bar at Wild Wingos Sunday evening and not home with your wife. Is that true?”
Harding sucked in his breath. “Yeah, I was there. I like to watch the games now and then. They have those big screens TVs. Erica’s not a fan, so I go there sometimes . . .”
“And?”
His eyelids flickered and he sighed. “And I like to put money on the games. Erica doesn’t know about that.” He looked from one detective to the other. “She doesn’t need to know that, right?”
“Not if you tell the truth about where you were.”
A moment passed. Harding nodded once.
“How long were you at the bar?”
“Until about six-thirty or so.”
“But the game didn’t end for another hour. Why did you leave early?”
Harding shrugged. “I figured I was going to lose. No point in sitting there and watching it anymore.”
Cancini noticed that Harding hadn’t mentioned the call from Goins. “Where did you go when you left?”
Harding licked his lips. “I was upset about the money, so I drove around for an hour, maybe more. I don’t really know. When I calmed down, I went home.”
“What time was that?”
“Eight. Maybe a little after.”
“Was your wife home?”
“Of course. Where else would she be at eight o’ clock on a Sunday night?” Cancini studied Harding’s face, but could read nothing. According to the private detective, Erica Harding had been dropped off at Ballston. Her husband also knew his wife had been at the mall. What was the man not telling them?
“I don’t know, Mr. Harding. That’s why I’m asking you.”
The man waved a hand. “She was home. Look, I didn’t tell you about being at the bar because I didn’t want Erica to find out about the gambling. She wouldn’t approve, and it has nothing to do with her.”
“Where is your wife now?”
“At work. I dropped her off after she saw the doctor.” He checked his watch. “I need to pick her up soon.” He stood again. “Can I go now?”
“Mr. Harding, would you say you and your wife are close?”
Harding frowned. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
“Since you were kids,” Cancini echoed his words. “That’s a long time. Have you always been together?”
A vein near the corner of Harding’s eye throbbed. “No. We broke up a couple of times. You know how high school can be.” He forced a smile that looked frozen on his face. “I think she might’ve dated some. I’m not sure.”
Cancini’s pulse quickened. The man was lying. Cancini guessed Harding knew exactly how many men his wife had dated and exactly who they were. “How did you feel about that? About her dating other men?”
“It was her business,” Harding said, his tone flat. He wiped his hands on his flannel shirt.
Following Erica’s every move was not a new thing. Cancini suspected Harding had done it all his life. “What about you? Did you ever date anyone other than Erica?”
Harding’s brows crinkled. “No. I loved her. I can’t remember when I didn’t.”
Cancini nodded. He recognized this to be the truth. “The breakups were her idea?”
“She just needed time.” A shadow crossed over his face as he spoke. “But she always came back to me. Always.” He got to his feet. “Can I go now?”
“In a minute. One more question, Mr. Harding.”
The man rocked on his toes. “Yes?”
“Do you know if your wife confided in Father Holland about her accidents or your marriage or anything else?”
Harding stiffened. “You would have to ask her about that, Detective.”
“I will.”
His face drained of color. “She’s still pretty upset. It might not be a good time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Cancini raised a hand. “Oh, and Mr. Harding? Don’t leave town.”
“Something odd about that marriage,” Cancini said after Harding was gone. His fingers drummed the conference room table.
Bitterness tinged Smitty’s words. “You mean besides the fact that he beats her, follows her everywhere, and has been obsessed with her since they were kids?”
Cancini cocked his head to one side. All that was true, but there was something else, something he was missing about the man and his wife. Sadness? Pain? “Besides that. There’s something weird.”
Smitty’s phone buzzed. He listened, stood, and whooped. “She got the warrant for Ketchum’s apartment.”
Head pounding, Cancini grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. Harding and his issues would have to wait.
Chapter Sixty-nine
“Cancini?” Jensen held up a clear bag with a gun. “Found this hidden under the mattresses.”
Cancini pulled a pair of plastic gloves over his wrists. He took the bag from Jensen and turned it over in his hands. “Jensen, you and Bronson take this to ballistics. I need to know if it matches either shooting.”
Doubt crossed the younger man’s face. “It’s late. No one will be there.”
Time was running out on how much longer they could keep Ketchum in holding. They needed an answer now, and Cancini couldn’t worry about whether some analyst could work after five. “I don’t give a damn what time it is. Call someone. Anyone who can get the job done. Do you think you can handle that?”
Jensen backed away, taking the bag with him.
Cancini glanced around the apartment. The living room contained a sofa, a TV, a single coffee table, and a bookshelf piled high with gun magazines. A box spring and mattress filled the small bedroom. The drawers in the battered dresser hung open. Ketchum’s clothes and shoes had been dumped onto the floor. Officers picked through the piles, item by item.
In the bathroom, a gray film covered the bathtub and floor. A musty towel hung from a hook on the door. Cancini emptied the medicine cabinet and sifted through the bottles of aspirin and tubes of ointment. Nothing. He closed the cabinet door and stared at the cracked mirror over the sink. They needed that gun to match one of the shootings. They’d found no evidence of accelerants. They had no physical evidence tying Ketchum to the fire or the murder. The El Camino was circumstantial, and his lawyer knew it. No prosecutor would dare take that flimsy evidence before a judge. Without a ballistics match, they would have to let him go.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. He’d left six new messages for Father Joe. None had been returned. No one had heard from him in twenty-four hours. It wasn’t like the old man to disappear without a word. Cancini’s stomach clenched. Where could he be?
“Cancini!” Smitty’s voice rang out. “I got something.”
Cancini found his partner in the kitchen crouched over a pile of fast-food bags and cigarette butts. In his hand, he held up a white slip of paper.
“It’s a gas receipt,” Smitty said as he rose to his feet. He handed it to Cancini. “For five dollars of gas. The same volume as the gas can found partly melted by the fire.”
Cancini took the receipt between his gloved fingers. “Could be another explanation.”
“Don’t know what that could be. Ketchum doesn’t own a car or a lawn mower or anything else that needs five gallons of gas.”
“He might have bought gas for a friend.”
“On the same day as the fire? The receipt has the time stamped on it. Ten-forty p.m.”
Cancini’s neck tingled as he handed back the slip. “Good work. Bag it.”
Chapter Seventy
Cancini pulled out his chair and yawned. The folders on his desk were divided into two piles. The first, he’d scoured. The second, he’d left for the night. After less than four hours of sleep, he was as refreshed as he could be. A large pot of coffee would have to make up the difference.
The remaining files were not thick, but with each page, his confidence they would find something tying Ketchum to Vega diminished. Ballistics had matched the bullet from the drive-by shooting to the gun they found in Ketchum’s apartment, and he’d been formally charged. It was something but not nearly enough. Unless they could add the arson, Ketchum would make bail and be back on the streets in a day, two at the most. There was no reason for Ketchum to give up Vega. It wasn’t worth the risk. Cancini sighed and stretched his arms over his head. His bones creaked and he settled wearily back in his chair. He opened a file. Shit. Maybe they wouldn’t find anything, but he wouldn’t give up. Vega was in this up to his neck. Somehow. Someway.
An hour later, he sat up straight. In his hand, he held a payroll report from a Chicken del Rey. Through an ongoing IRS audit prompted by the FBI, Talbot had gotten his hands on copies of recent payroll reports and sent them over. Focusing on the daily printouts, he scanned several more. There it was again. Twice Ketchum had been paid by Vega’s restaurant. He checked the hourly wage. It was well above minimum wage, and the hours were nearly full-time. It wasn’t a huge sum of money, but the second payday occurred the day after the fire. Was this evidence that Vega was funneling blood money through his restaurant chain?
Smitty strolled in with a greasy bag of biscuits in his hand. Cancini noted the dark circles under his partner’s eyes and the blond stubble that peppered his chin and upper lip. Smitty nodded toward the clock on the wall. “You’re in early. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Some.”
“Uh-huh.” He set a wrapped biscuit on Cancini’s desk. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.” Cancini waved the payroll report in the air. His young partner raised a light eyebrow. “Ketchum told us he was unemployed, right?”
Smitty unwrapped his biscuit. “That’s what he said. His dad was paying the rent.”
“According to this, he was working for Chicken del Rey. I’ve got two copies of reports that show he was getting paid for a full-time management job.”
“What?” A bite of biscuit fell out of the young man’s mouth. He reached for the report, scanned the page, and found Ketchum’s name. “We’ve got him.”
“It won’t be that easy.” Cancini shrugged. “He’ll have an explanation, but it proves a connection.”
“What proves a connection?” Martin approached with a stack of newspapers under his arm.
Cancini briefed the captain on the payroll report and the payments to Ketchum. “We can use this as leverage with his lawyer. See if he might be more willing to play now.”
“I’ll get Lawrence down here ASAP.” A few more detectives made their way to their desks. The precinct slowly came to life, all focus back on the Holland investigation. Martin rubbed his chin. “Why would Vega take that kind of risk? Why would he use his restaurant to pay a hired gun? Doesn’t make sense.”
Cancini agreed. He’d been thinking the same thing. “You’re right. This is sloppy for Vega. The only explanation is he’s cash-strapped. He’s got creditors that need to be paid. Maybe when Holland cleaned out the half mil, Vega’s cash flow took a hit.”
“What about the money he was socking money away in that German corporation?”
“Landon hasn’t been able to trace the money from there. Could be that it was going back out again or isn’t easily available. Or maybe Vega’s just greedy and no one else knows about it.” He stood up and paced behind his chair, reports clutched in his hand. “I’d like Landon to go through all these reports again—find out if there are any other suspicious payments. If we get lucky, fraud might be enough to bring Vega in even if Ketchum refuses to cooperate.”
“Good thinking.” Martin pointed at the whiteboard. “Any ties to Holland yet?”
“Not yet. Ketchum is still our best bet, but only if he talks. Landon is still digging into the e-mails but we’ve got nothing that shows any recent contact between Holland and Vega.”
“What about that receipt for gas?”
Smitty spoke up. “The gas station has cameras, but they don’t work. Nothing there and Ketchum paid in cash. None of the cashiers remembers seeing him so far, but we’re going to hit the station again, see if they recognize the El Camino.”
“All right. I’ll get Lawrence to squeeze Ketchum’s lawyer. Maybe if he thinks he’s going to do some serious time, he’ll give up Vega.”
Cancini remained quiet. Ketchum might turn, but it would take more than a payroll report and a gas receipt. The ballistics report was still the most solid evidence they had, but the gun was stolen and Ketchum was claiming he found it in the street.
Martin, walking away, stopped and asked, “By the way, who’s paying for Ketchum’s lawyer? That guy can’t
be cheap.”
“We checked with his parents,” Smitty said. “They don’t know anything about it. His office claims he’s doing pro bono work. It’s another angle where we can try to find a connection to Vega.”
Martin pursed his lips. “Good. We need a goddamn break in this case.”
“Cancini.” The dark-haired detective wheeled around. Jensen held a slip of paper in his hand. “Your friend.”
Cancini’s heart thumped. “What is it?”
Jensen handed him the scrap of paper. “They located his cell phone.”
Chapter Seventy-one
Cancini chewed on his lower lip, his muscles tense. He couldn’t stop his mind from going to dark places, thoughts he didn’t want to think.
“It’s in a bodega,” Jensen had said. “The tracking software gives the address where the phone is located.”
Cancini, coat in hand, hadn’t waited to hear more.
Ten minutes later, they had almost reached the location. Cancini gripped the phone in his hand. Jensen had sent a follow-up text, one that sent chills up and down the detective’s spine.
No activity on the phone since Tuesday.
Smitty turned off Benning Road, turned twice more, and pulled over. “Do you see what I see?”
“I see it.” At the end of the block, two doors down from the bodega, was a Chicken del Rey.
“Can’t be a coincidence,” Smitty said, his voice tight.
Quiet, Cancini climbed out of the car. The wind howled, and he shivered under his thin coat. Cars crawled past them as commuters headed toward the beltway or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. A smattering of folks hurried along the sidewalks, rushing to a metro or bus stop.
Cancini scanned the block. A take-out pizza joint was nestled between two brownstones. A “For Lease” sign hung in another window. Only the grocery appeared to be open. He ducked inside. A bell jingled until the door slammed shut behind them.
“Damn, it smells good in here,” Smitty said.