Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories, Volume 3

by Jeffery Deaver

  “FRs?”

  “Friction ridges,” LaTour muttered. “Fingerprints. Smudges—from the manufacturer, stockers, getting moved around on shelves.”

  “The fiber?” LaTour leaned forward and lifted a tiny white strand off Tal’s suit jacket. “This’s the same type the Crime Scene found. Cotton worsted. See it all the time in clothing. The fibers at the Whitleys’ could’ve come from anywhere. It might’ve come from you.” Shuffling sloppily through the files with his massive paws. “Okay, the gloves and the tread marks? Those’re Playtex kitchen gloves; I recognize the ridges. No perps ever use them because the wear patterns can be traced…” He held up the checkbook ledger again. “Lookit the check the wife wrote today. To Esmeralda Costanzo, ‘For cleaning services.’ The housekeeper was in yesterday, cleaned the house wearing the gloves—maybe she even straightened up the stack of paper they used later for the suicide note, left the smudges then. The tread marks? That’s about the size of a small import. Just the sort that a cleaning woman’d be driving. They were hers. Bet you any money.”

  Though he didn’t like the man’s message, Tal was impressed at the way his mind worked. He’d made all those deductions—extremely logical deductions—based on a three-minute examination of the data.

  “Got a case needs lookin’ at,” LaTour grumbled and tossed the report onto Tal’s desk. He clomped back to his office.

  Breaking the silence that followed, Dempsey said, “Hey, I know you don’t get out into the field much. Must get frustrating to sit in the office all day long, not doing…you know…”

  Real police work? Tal wondered if that’s what the captain was hesitating to say.

  “More active stuff” turned out to be the captain’s euphemism. “You probably feel sometimes like you don’t fit in.”

  He’s probably at home humping his calculator…

  “We’ve all felt that way sometimes. Honest. But being out in the field’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Not like TV, you know. And you’re the best at what you do, Tal. Statistician. Man, that’s a hard job. An important job. Let’s face it”—lowering his voice—“guys like Greg wouldn’t know a number if it jumped out and bit ’em on the ass. You’ve got a real special talent.”

  Tal weathered the condescension with a faint smile, which obscured the anger beneath his flushed face. The speech was clearly out of a personnel management training manual. Dempsey had just plugged in “statistician” for “traffic detail” or “receptionist.”

  “Okay, now, don’t you have some numbers to crunch? We’ve got that midyear assignment meeting coming up and nobody can put together a report like you, my friend.”

  + − < = > ÷

  MONDAY EVENING’S DRIVE to the Whitleys’ house took him considerably longer than the night before, since he drove the way he usually did: within the speed limit, perfectly centered in his lane (and with the belt firmly clasped this time).

  Noting how completely he’d destroyed the shrubs last night, Tal parked in front of the door and ducked under the crime scene tape. He stepped inside, smelling again the sweet, poignant scent of the wood smoke from the couple’s last cocktail hour.

  Inside their house—a side door was unlocked—he pulled on latex gloves he’d bought at a drugstore on the way here (thinking only when he got to the checkout lane: Damn, they probably have hundreds of these back in the detective pen). Then he began working his way through the house, picking up anything that Crime Scene had missed that might shed some light on the mystery of the Whitleys’ deaths.

  Greg LaTour’s bluntness and Captain Dempsey’s pep talk, in other words, had no effect on him. All intellectually honest mathematicians welcome the disproving of their theorems as much as the proving. But the more LaTour had laid out the evidence that the 2124 was wrong, the more Tal’s resolve grew to get to the bottom of the deaths.

  There was an odd perfect number out there, and there was something unusual about the deaths of the Bensons and the Whitleys; Tal was determined to write the proof.

  Address books, Day-Timers, receipts, letters, stacks of papers, piles of business cards for lawyers, repairmen, restaurants, investment advisors, accountants. He felt a chill as he read one for some New Age organization, the Lotus Foundation for Alternative Treatment, tucked in with all the practical and mundane cards, evidence of the desperation of rational people frightened by impending death.

  A snap of floorboard, a faint clunk. A metallic sound. It startled him. He’d parked in the front of the house; whoever’d arrived would know he was here. The police tape and crime scene notice were clear about forbidding entry and since this was clearly not a “case” in anybody’s mind but his he doubted that the visitor was a cop.

  And he realized with a start a corollary of his theorem that the Whitleys might have been murdered was, of course, that there might be a murderer, a person not at all pleased about his investigating the deaths.

  He reached for his hip and realized, to his dismay, that he’d left his pistol in his desk at the office. The only suspects Tal had ever met face-to-face were benign accountants or investment bankers and even then the confrontation was usually in court and he never carried the gun. Palms sweating, Tal looked around for something he could use to protect himself. He was in the bedroom, surrounded by books, clothes, furniture. Nothing he could use as a weapon.

  He looked out the window.

  A 20-foot drop to the flagstone patio.

  Was he too proud to hide under the bed?

  Footsteps sounded closer, walking up the stairs. The carpet muted them but the old floorboards creaked as the intruder got closer. Maybe there was no danger. But then why hadn’t the visitor announced his presence?

  No, he decided, not too proud for the bed. But that didn’t seem to be the wisest choice. Escape was better.

  Out the window. Tal opened it, swung the leaded-glass panes outward. No grass below; just a flagstone deck dotted with booby traps of patio furniture.

  He heard the metallic click of a gun. The steps grew closer, making directly for the bedroom.

  Okay, jump. He glanced down. Aim for the padded lawn divan. You’ll sprain your ankle but you won’t get shot.

  He put his hand on the windowsill, was about to boost himself over when a voice filled the room, a woman’s voice. “Who the hell’re you?”

  Tal turned fast, observing a slim blond woman in her mid or late thirties, eyes narrow. She was smoking a cigarette and putting a gold lighter back into her purse—the metallic sound he’d assumed was a gun. There was something familiar—and troubling—about her and he realized that, yes, he’d seen her face—in the snapshots on the walls. “You’re their daughter.”

  “Who are you?” she repeated in a gravelly voice.

  “You shouldn’t be in here. It’s a crime scene.”

  “You’re a cop. Let me see some ID.” She glanced at his latex-gloved hand on the window, undoubtedly wondering what he’d been about to do.

  He offered her the badge and identification card.

  She glanced at them carefully. “You’re the one who did it?”

  “What?”

  “You had them taken to the morgue? Had them goddamn butchered?”

  “I had some questions about their deaths. I followed procedures.”

  More or less.

  “So you were the one. Detective Talbot Simms.” She’d memorized his name. “I’ll want to be sure you’re personally named in the suit.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” Tal said. “The scene hasn’t been released yet.”

  He remembered this from a cop show on TV.

  “Fuck your scene.”

  A different response than on the TV show.

  “Let me see some ID,” Tal said, stepping forward, feeling more confident now.

  The staring match began.

  He added cheerfully, “I’m happy to call some officers to take you downtown.” This—from another show—was a bit inaccurate; the Westbrook Sheriff’s Department wasn’t down
town at all. It was in a strip mall next to a large Stop & Shop grocery.

  She reluctantly showed him her driver’s license. Sandra Kaye Whitley, thirty-six. He recognized the address, a very exclusive part of the county.

  “What was so fucking mysterious about their deaths? They killed themselves.”

  Tal observed something interesting about her. Yes, she was angry. But she wasn’t sad.

  “We can’t talk about an open case.”

  “What case?” Sandra snapped. “You keep saying that.”

  “Well, it was a murder, you know.”

  Her hand paused then continued carrying her cigarette to her lips. She asked coolly, “Murder?”

  Tal said, “Your father turned the car ignition on. Technically he murdered your mother.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Probably it was. But he continued anyway. “Had they ever had a history of depression?”

  She debated for a moment then answered. “My father’s disease was serious. And my mother didn’t want to live without him.”

  “But his illness wasn’t terminal, was it?”

  “He wasn’t on a goddamn feeding tube, no. But he was going to die. And he wanted to die with dignity.”

  Tal felt he was losing this contest; she kept going on the defensive. He tried to think more like Greg LaTour. “What exactly’re you doing here?”

  “It’s my family’s house,” she snapped. “My house. I grew up here. I wanted to see it. They were my parents, you know.”

  He nodded. “Of course…I’m sorry for your loss. I just want to make sure that everything’s what it seems to be. Just doing my job.”

  She shrugged and stubbed the cigarette out in a heavy crystal ashtray on the dresser. She noticed, sitting next to it, a picture of her with her parents. For a long moment she stared at it then turned away, hiding tears from him. She wiped her face then turned back. “I am an attorney, you know. I’m going to have one of my litigation partners look at this situation through a microscope, Detective.”

  “That’s fine, Ms. Whitley,” Tal said. “Can I ask what you put in your purse earlier?”

  “Purse?”

  “When you were downstairs.”

  A hesitation. “It’s nothing important.”

  “This is a crime scene. You can’t take anything. That’s a felony. Which I’m sure you knew. Being an attorney, as you say.”

  Was it a felony? he wondered.

  At least lawyer Sandra didn’t seem to know it wasn’t.

  “You can give it to me now and I’ll forget about the incident. Or we can keep going with that trip downtown.”

  She held his eye for a moment, slicing him into tiny pieces, as she debated. Then she opened her purse. She handed him a small stack of mail. “It was in the mailbox to be picked up. But with that yellow tape all over the place the mailman didn’t come by. I was just going to mail it.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  She held the envelopes out to him with a hand that seemed to be quivering slightly. He took them in his gloved hands.

  In fact, he’d had no idea that she’d put anything in her purse; he’d had a flash of intuition. Talbot Simms suddenly felt a rush; statisticians never bluff.

  Sandra looked around the room and her eyes seemed mournful again. But he decided it was more anger he was seeing. She said icily, “You will be hearing from my litigation partner, Detective Simms. Oh, you will. Shut the lights out when you leave, unless the county’s going to be paying the electric bill.”

  + − < = > ÷

  “I’M GETTING COFFEE, BOSS. You want some?”

  “Sure, thanks,” he told Shellee.

  It was the next morning and Tal was continuing to pore over the material he’d collected. Some new information had just arrived: the Whitleys’ phone records for the past month, the autopsy results and the handwriting analysis of the suicide note.

  He found nothing immediately helpful about the phone records and set them aside, grimacing as he looked for someplace to rest them. There wasn’t any free space on his desk and so he stacked them, as orderly as he could, on top of another stack. It made him feel edgy, the mess, but there wasn’t anything else he could do, short of moving another desk into his office—and he could imagine the ribbing he’d take for that.

  Data plural…humping his calculator…

  Tal looked over the handwriting expert’s report first. The woman said that she could state with 98% certainty that Sam Whitley had written the note, though the handwriting had been unsteady, the grammar flawed, too, which was unusual for a man of his education.

  The garage is filled with dangrous fumes.

  Finally Tal turned to the autopsy results. Death was, as they’d thought, due to carbon monoxide poisoning. There were no contusions, tissue damage or ligature marks to suggest they’d been forced into the car. There was alcohol in the blood, .010 percent in Sam’s system, 0.19 in Elizabeth’s, neither particularly high. But they both had medication in their bloodstreams, too. One, in particular, intrigued him.

  Present in both victims were unusually large quantities of 9-fluoro, 7-chloro-1,3-dihydro-1-methyl-5-phenyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin, 5-hydroxytryptamine and N-(1-phenethyl-4-piperidyl) propionanilide citrate.

  This was, the ME’s report continued, an analgesic/antianxiety drug sold under the trade name “Luminux.” The amount in their blood meant that the couple had nearly three times the normally prescribed strength of the drug, though it did not, the ME concluded, make them more susceptible to carbon monoxide poisoning or otherwise directly contribute to their deaths.

  Tal supposed it had been this combination of liquor and the drug that had been responsible for the unsteady handwriting.

  Looking over his desk—too goddamn many papers!—he finally found another document and carefully read the inventory of the house, which the Crime Scene Unit had prepared. The Whitleys had plenty of medicine—for Sam’s heart problem, as well as for Elizabeth’s arthritis and other maladies—but no Luminux.

  Shellee brought him the coffee. Her eyes cautiously took in the cluttered desktop.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “Still lookin’ tired, boss.”

  “Didn’t sleep well.” Instinctively he pulled his striped tie straight, kneaded the knot to make sure it was tight.

  “It’s fine, boss,” she whispered, nodding at his shirt. Meaning: Quit fussing.

  He winked at her.

  Thinking about common denominators…

  The Bensons’ suicide note, too, had been sloppy, Tal recalled. He rummaged through the piles on his desk and found their lawyer’s card then dialed the man’s office and was put through to him.

  “Mr. Metzer, this’s Detective Simms. I met you at the Bensons’ a few days ago.”

  “Right. I remember.”

  “This is a little unusual but I’d like permission to take a blood sample.”

  “From me?” he asked in a startled voice.

  “No, no, from the Bensons.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to update our database about medicines and diseases of recent suicides. It’ll be completely anonymous.”

  “Oh. Well, sorry, but they were cremated this morning.”

  “They were? That was fast.”

  “I don’t know if it was fast or it was slow. But that’s what they wanted. It was in their instructions to me. They wanted to be cremated as soon as possible and the contents of the house sold—”

  “Wait. You’re telling me—”

  “The contents of the house sold immediately.”

  “When’s that going to happen?”

  “It’s probably already done. We’ve had dealers in the house since Sunday morning. I don’t think there’s much left.”

  “Can they do that? Isn’t it a crime scene?”

  “There were some Greeley police officers there. They said the county called it a suicide so they didn’t think anybody’d care.”

  Tal remembered the man at
the Whitleys’ house—there to arrange for the liquidation of the estate. He wished he’d known about 2124-ing scenes at the Bensons’ house.

  Common denominators…

  “Do you still have the suicide note?”

  “I didn’t take it. I imagine it was thrown out when the service cleaned the house.”

  This’s all way too fast, Tal thought. He looked over the papers on his desk. “Do you know if either of them was taking a drug called Luminux?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Can you give me Mr. Benson’s cardiologist’s name?”

  A pause then the lawyer said, “I suppose it’s okay. Yeah. Dr. Peter Brody. Over in Glenstead.”

  Tal was about to hang up but then a thought occurred to him. “Mr. Metzer, when I met you on Friday, didn’t you tell me the Bensons weren’t religious?”

  “That’s right. They were atheists…What’s this all about, Detective?”

  “Like I say—just getting some statistics together. That’s all. Thanks for your time.”

  He got Dr. Brody’s number and called the doctor’s office. The man was on vacation and his head nurse was reluctant to talk about patients, even deceased ones. She did admit, though, that Brody had not prescribed Luminux for them.

  Tal then called the head of Crime Scene and learned that the gun the Bensons had killed themselves with was in an evidence locker. He asked that Latents look it over for prints. “Can you do a rush on it?”

  “Happy to. It’s comin’ outa your budget, Detective,” the man said cheerfully. “Be about ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  As he waited for the results on the gun, Tal opened his briefcase and noticed the three letters Sandra Whitley had in her purse at her parents’ house. Putting on a pair of Buy-Rite Pharmacy latex gloves once again, he ripped open the three envelopes and examined the contents.