Power Struggle

by Carolyn Arnold

  Terry pulled out his notebook and pen. He pointed the tip of the pen at Yasmine. “What’s his motive for this, though?”

  “At this point, it beats me. Maybe he thought she had the note he’d been searching Bates’s place for?” She observed Yasmine again and how she came across so serene, even in death. Madison would wager she was asleep and hadn’t seen it coming. Then Madison recalled how shaken and scared Yasmine had been when they’d talked with her. Almost as if she had an idea who had killed Bates. What if Yasmine had known Bates’s killer? And what if they knew she knew?

  “Do you remember how afraid she was when we questioned her?” Madison asked Terry. “I think she may have known who killed Bates. But why not tell us who it was? We could have protected her.”

  “She was more afraid of snitching than dying,” Terry said drily.

  “And who do we know that can put that sort of fear into someone?” Madison asked rhetorically. “Maybe she knew Bates was involved with the Russians.”

  Terry’s gaze went to Yasmine. “If she did, that secret died with her.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to the landlord and see if he has something useful to tell us.” She took the lead out of the bedroom.

  Madison stepped into the hallway and nearly smacked right into Cynthia.

  “That came close to hurting,” Cynthia said.

  “You can say that again.” Madison acknowledged Mark behind Cynthia with a bob of her head.

  Cynthia put a hand on Madison’s arm. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “I’ll live.” Cynthia’s comment was meant to be lighthearted, but it fell heavy with the weight of irony.

  “Have you gotten anywhere with tracing the cameras?” Madison asked, sliding her arm away from her friend’s touch.

  Cynthia shook her head. “A third party is working on it. And before you get on me, he knows what he’s doing and has worked with us before. There’s nothing definitive for us to go on yet, though. He was smart about it and used an IP scrambler. So…” She winced.

  “It might not lead us anywhere,” Madison stamped out. “Unbelievable.” She bit back the urge to cry out in defeat. Constantine was always one step ahead; it made her feel so powerless. And here she was at Constantine’s mercy, on his timetable, waiting on him to strike again.

  “I know it sucks, but it’s still early,” Cynthia added with a tight smile. But Madison wasn’t going to latch on to her friend’s optimism. An awkward silence followed, and Cynthia added, “If you guys could just step to the side and let us in, we’ll get to work.”

  Madison and Terry moved out of their way. She watched Cynthia and Mark as they moved into the apartment.

  She took a deep breath and rubbed her temples. A headache was setting in, and it was going to be one pounding son of a bitch.

  Terry’s hand was braced to knock on the landlord’s door, but it opened before he got that far.

  The man on the other side was easily in his sixties with gray hair and gray eyes. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “You’re Oliver Carson?” Terry ignored the man’s question.

  “I am.”

  “I’m Detective Terry Grant. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

  Oliver’s face fell. “Yes, well, nothing personal, but I wish I’d never heard of you.”

  “None taken.” Terry paused and gestured toward Madison. “This is my partner, Madison Knight. Can we come in?”

  “Certainly.” Oliver opened the door wider to let them enter. “Just take a seat wherever you’d like.” He gestured to the living room on the immediate left.

  Madison and Terry sat on a couch, and Oliver settled into a ratty reclining chair and put the leg rest up.

  “Is she dead?” Oliver asked, timid this time, his gaze on Terry.

  “I’m afraid she is,” Terry replied.

  He reached for a glass of dark liquid from a table next to him, and ice cubes chinked when he lifted it to his mouth. Madison couldn’t smell it, but she guessed it was a whiskey and cola. And who could blame the man if it was? He’d just found out one of his tenants was murdered.

  “I had a horrible feeling when she didn’t answer.” Oliver swallowed a mouthful of his drink and licked his lips. “What happened?”

  “We can’t disclose the details at this time,” Madison said.

  Oliver sniffled. His hand was shaking as he went to replace his glass on the side table. “Which is police-talk for murder.”

  “Officer Gardener mentioned that you hadn’t seen Yasmine leave her apartment since she came home yesterday,” Madison said, pressing past his comment.

  “That’s right.”

  “And what time was that?”

  His brow furrowed in thought. “Say, one or two in the afternoon.”

  “Did you notice if she had any visitors?” she asked, repeating the question Gardener had already asked.

  “No, and I would have seen them, too,” he said. He seemed completely unashamed of the creepy habit he had of keeping tabs on Yasmine.

  They didn’t have a time of death yet, but Madison’s mind went to the dry blood. “Is it possible that you missed someone going into her place? Maybe during the night?”

  Oliver shook his head. “I would have heard someone knocking. The walls are paper-thin, and I’m a light sleeper.”

  But he didn’t hear a gunshot?

  Even if a silencer had been used, the sound could be mistaken as something else to the unwitting listener. Also, Madison wasn’t going to verbalize it, but it was possible Yasmine’s visitor—aka killer—hadn’t knocked at all. They could have picked the lock or had a key, especially since it seemed Yasmine had known her killer. There was no way to know how well.

  Madison froze.

  Yasmine had said she had a boyfriend from out of town. A boyfriend she had seemed afraid of. And if that boyfriend had a key…

  Were Constantine and Kevin Jones the same man?

  Oliver was squinting at her.

  Madison took a second, then asked, “Could you hear it when she unlocked her door and opened it?”

  “Yes. That too.” Oliver picked up his glass again and took a long pull from it.

  “Maybe you stepped out and missed her guest arriving? Say earlier in the day? Are you always home?” Madison peppered him with questions.

  Oliver tucked his chin into a shoulder. “I am most of the time.”

  “What about in the last twenty-four hours? Did you leave your apartment for any reason?” Terry asked.

  “Oh!” Oliver tapped the arm of his chair. “I went down to get my mail.”

  “At what time?” Madison inquired.

  “Around three, three thirty.”

  “And that was?” Madison pressed.

  “Yesterday. Soon after Yasmine got home.”

  Terry leaned forward. “Did you see anyone in the lobby? Pass anyone on the stairs?”

  “I’m too old for the stairs. I always take the elevator.”

  That would leave room for the killer to use the stairs without Oliver’s knowledge. It might be a secured building, but that was easy to bypass. If bypassing had even been necessary. Yasmine could have buzzed him in. For that matter, he could have tagged along when someone else unlocked the door.

  Madison looked at Oliver, who was worrying his lip. “You never answered my partner’s question about the lobby. Did you see anyone?”

  Oliver shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It certainly does,” Madison said firmly.

  Oliver swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple heaving. “No. I’m not saying anything.”

  Madison narrowed her eyes, letting the seconds tick off and utilizing the power of silence.

  “You don’t know if that man had anything to do with her death.” Oliver’s declar
ation sounded definitive, but his shifting gaze said otherwise.

  Madison straightened her back and squared her shoulders. “So it was a man.”

  Oliver flushed at his slipup.

  Madison glanced at Terry, then back at Oliver, and pulled out her phone. She brought up a picture of Constantine, angled her screen so Terry could see it, and held it steady for Oliver. “Is this the man you saw?”

  Oliver didn’t say anything, and the room filled with a tangible silence.

  “Has this person been to this building before?” She was trying to gauge why Oliver was withholding the man’s identity. “You know him?”

  Oliver pointed at her screen. “I recognize him.”

  He was avoiding her question about the man in the lobby, and Madison’s neck and shoulders tensed. She cradled the phone, rocking it left and right. “Was Yasmine seeing this man?”

  “I think so,” Oliver said. “He’d spend a night here and there with her.”

  “When was the last time he was here?” Madison asked.

  Oliver screwed up his face. “Haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “Do you remember his name?” Terry inquired.

  Oliver pointed to the phone. “Kevin…something. I can’t recall his last name.”

  Madison’s entire body pulsated. “Jones?”

  The man nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Madison’s suspicion had been confirmed: Kevin Jones and Constantine Romanov were one and the same. It still left unanswered questions, of course, like how much had Yasmine known? Was she in the dark about what Constantine did, as she had claimed? Did any of this result in her murder?

  But according to the landlord, Constantine wasn’t the man from the lobby. Maybe she’d get something out of him going about things another way.

  “Let’s talk about the man you saw downstairs yesterday,” Madison began. “Would he come to visit with Yasmine, too?”

  Oliver finished off his drink and ran the back of his hand over his mouth. He still wasn’t meeting her gaze, and his eyes were darting about the room.

  “Oliver?” Madison prompted.

  “I don’t know.”

  Madison remembered Yasmine had mentioned a married man, one whose identity she’d refused to disclose. Was that, by chance, the person Oliver was protecting?

  “What did he look like, Oliver?” Maybe if she used his name enough, it would encourage him to speak up.

  Nothing.

  “Can you tell us anything else about the man?” She tried not to show her exasperation, but it was becoming a struggle.

  Still nothing.

  Fine, he wants to play this way? We’ll play.

  “We understand that Yasmine was seeing a few men,” she said. “Did any of them have a key to her place?”

  “I never saw any use a key.”

  The more he refused to discuss the man in the lobby, the surer she was that this man was involved. Who had he been to make the landlord so intent on keeping quiet? It was obvious he knew the man. Maybe he felt the man was above reproach. Or maybe he really didn’t think that he’d had anything to do with Yasmine. Whatever it was keeping him quiet, she didn’t sense fear coming from him.

  “You realize you’re interfering with an open murder investigation,” Madison fired off.

  Oliver crossed his arms and looked away.

  She sighed. Whoever he was would remain a secret for now.

  She got to her feet, plucked a card from her pocket, and handed it to him. “Call if you decide to tell us who you saw in the lobby yesterday.”

  “I wouldn’t be waiting by your phone, Detective.”

  Madison and Terry left Oliver’s apartment, and he shut the door behind them. Madison leaned up against the wall next to the landlord’s door. “So Kevin Jones is Constantine.” It was easy to see in hindsight. Too bad she hadn’t been gifted with a crystal ball.

  “Yeah, that surprised me,” Terry admitted.

  “I know we have no idea who this man in the lobby was, but I still think Constantine killed her.”

  Terry scoffed. “Of course you do.”

  “Terry, are you—”

  “Let’s consider everything before we jump to any conclusions,” he interrupted.

  “You don’t think—”

  Terry held up his hand. “I’m not saying this doesn’t feel like Constantine, or even that Yasmine being murdered within days of her boyfriend being murdered is too much of a coincidence for me to accept, but first we need to find out if the man Oliver saw in the lobby matters to our case.”

  She understood what he was saying, and she tried to tamp down her bias. “I agree.” She paused. “It’s possible Constantine got in without Oliver knowing, though, despite his claim of seeing and hearing everything. He did say that Kevin, or Constantine, would sleep over with Yasmine from time to time.”

  “The same thing she told us when we spoke with her yesterday,” Terry added.

  “I wonder if she didn’t know more about him than she let on.” Madison had thought it a possibility when they’d first interviewed Yasmine, but now she was even more sure of it.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Terry concurred.

  “And I wonder if that’s exactly what got her killed.”

  -

  CHAPTER

  21

  MARK WAS PROCESSING YASMINE’S KITCHEN and didn’t pay Madison and Terry much attention when they walked into the apartment. He had the contents of a garbage bin spread out on the floor and was digging through the pile with latex-gloved hands. They found Cynthia in the bedroom.

  Cynthia was taking a picture but lowered the camera when they shadowed the doorway.

  “How’s it coming along?” Madison asked.

  “I found condom wrappers in the bathroom,” Cynthia said. “No sign of the used condoms, yet, but they could have been flushed.”

  A chill blanketed Madison, and her stomach tossed. Yasmine could have had sex with her killer just hours before her death.

  “Otherwise, we’re ready for Richards to take over. I was just getting a few more pictures. One can never have enough.”

  Madison loved that her friend was thorough and dedicated to her job. And since technology had taken them from the days of processing photos in a dark room to the digital age, pictures were a lot more cost-effective.

  Madison looked at Yasmine again, and her thoughts began to bounce around in her head. How had she gotten involved with Constantine? Speaking of Constantine, he might be a professional hit man, but Madison didn’t think he was in it just for the money. She had no doubt he enjoyed killing, but he was hired to take specific lives. With that, she wondered about the value on her own head or if Constantine was making an exception for her. Madison knew what she’d done to make him hungry enough to kill her, but what had Yasmine done? What had gotten her a bullet to the head?

  From there, Madison’s thoughts only got darker. She’d likely get more than a bullet…

  Her stomach churned some more, and tremors ran through her body. Her gaze fixed on Yasmine’s body, on the eyes that would never see again. Would that be how Madison would look when—

  Her legs buckled. Terry rushed to buoy her, but she dismissed him with a wave of a hand.

  Cynthia’s brows pinched together. “Are you all right?”

  Madison took a deep breath. She had to stop letting Constantine get to her. She had to be strong, do her job, and stop him once and for all. “I’m fine.”

  “I understand the body is in here?” Cole Richards stepped into the room, his assistant, Milo, behind him.

  Of course, the medical examiner’s question had been rhetorical. Yasmine’s body was on full display.

  “And she’s all yours.” Cynthia shot Madison a worried look as she walked past.

  “All right, let’s see w
hat we have here.” Richards moved toward Yasmine and set his case down on the floor next to the bed. He snapped on a pair of gloves and took a few minutes to study Yasmine. “Gunshot to the head,” he said, stating the obvious. “There isn’t any stippling or gunpowder burn. I’d say the shot was made at an intermediate range, from eighteen to twenty inches away. Based on blood loss, as well, it would appear the GSW is the cause of death.” He touched the blood on the side of her face. “Dry to the touch. She’s been here awhile.”

  “Any idea how long?” Madison asked.

  “I’ll let you know shortly.” Richards’s tone advised her to be patient. He held up Yasmine’s hand and lifted her arm. “Rigor has fully set in, so it’s been at least twelve hours. That’s a rough estimate.”

  “That would put her time of death around three in the morning or so,” Terry said.

  Richards turned a hardened gaze on Terry, and that said it all: he hadn’t concluded that yet.

  The ME bent over the bed and rolled Yasmine onto her side so that she faced away from him. “There’s a shored exit,” Richards commented. “The bullet traveled through her skull and met with her solid wood headboard on its exit. It’s mostly intact from what I see here.”

  “Good, so Samantha should have something to work with,” Madison said. Samantha was their in-house ballistics expert, and given enough bullet, she could pick up the striations left from the gun that fired it. From there, she could determine the manufacturer and, in some cases, the model of the gun.

  He lifted her pajama top and pulled out on the top of her shorts and looked inside. “Lividity in her lower back and buttocks confirms that she died in the supine position.”

  Richards returned Yasmine face up, took out a thermometer, and pierced it into her abdomen. A few seconds later, he pulled it out and rhymed off her liver temperature to Milo. “Let me know what the apartment is set at,” Richards directed, and his assistant left the room to check the thermostat.

  He returned and had everyone’s attention. “I’ve already done the calculation.”

  “What was the tempature?” Richards asked.

  Milo told him, and Richards looked contemplative for a few seconds. “And, what did you come up with?” Richards queried.