“I know the chain of evidence, Karen. I know every fucking step of this investigation. But Garrison confirmed it. He told me there was no question about it. They are definitely Will’s. Are you starting to see why I had to meet with you outside the squad room, away from the station?”
Karen scrutinized Frank’s intense face.
Frank continued, “I’ve known Will for so many years. For God’s sake, he was my mentor, and I don’t want to believe some of the really nasty crap running around in my brain.
She leaned forward, “What all have you got? If you can tie him to Batan’s murder, then the only logical sequence would be that it started with Jessica Benson. But I’m sure he didn’t even know her.”
Frank put his palms face down on the table and said, “Look, Karen, for months before this happened Will had been bitching to me about problems he was having with some bimbo he’d been seeing. So when this case breaks, I figure, you know, classic Will, throws himself into an investigation to take his mind off his personal troubles. So maybe he was a little more of an asshole than usual on this one, but shit, he’s human, right? I never gave it a second thought, really.
“Then he starts talking shit around the squad room about you and Kyle Sands, and he’s never said a bad word about you, ever. He didn’t miss a chance to make a dig. And you two fighting constantly, I knew something was wrong. I almost thought for a minute there that you were the bimbo — uh, sorry, Kar — and the two of you were having trouble getting past an affair.”
“Stop it! Listen to yourself, Frank. Do you even know what you’re saying here? You’re talking about Will. Sure, he’s been a real asshole lately, but murder? There’s obviously got to be another explanation. Fingerprints aren’t always conclusive, especially partials. In fact, I was reading an article in the New Yorker just last week. There are more glitches with the fingerprint process than anyone could have imagined. They now have experts on experts that check them out after the computers have declared a match. And even then, the feebs say the results are often iffy.”
Frank nodded. “I hear you, but I was clear with Sam, my friend at Quantico, that this was a rough case. He knew what was involved, the publicity and all. He had his top experts up there on it, and they all confirmed. What do you think, when a cop’s prints come down on a murder weapon they’re not going to take extra precautions and run ‘em ‘til they’re damn sure before they give the results? This is making me nuts, Karen. That’s why I came to you. You were right when you said he was stuck on Sands for the killer, and I’m not gonna try to tell you any different. I thought he looked good for it myself. But this case has more layers than a fudge cake. Think about it. If Will’s got something to do with the Benson murder, the best way to close it out is to find a patsy. And the Batan murder. We know they’re connected.”
Karen started to say something and then caught her upper lip with her teeth and just shook her head. A stab of guilt shot through her. She had been the poster child for bad form in this investigation, and now it was about Will. She felt much like Alice must have when she fell down the rabbit hole. Surely, she thought, when the psychedelic adventures end, everything will be normal again.
“Karen, are you listening to me or what? We can’t just ignore the evidence and pretend this never happened. It all fits. Will was having big problems with the broad he was seeing. You must’ve known about it.”
“No, I really didn’t. Will never talked about that stuff with me except right after he split from his wife, and that was years ago.”
“Oh yeah, I remember. There were rumors that he had a thing for you at the time.”
“Don’t go there, Frank.”
“Yeah,” he reached over and gave her arm a big squeeze. “Sorry. Anyways, I knew a little about what was going on with him and the whatchamacallit, girlfriend he was running around with. She was cheating on him and he was real pissed.”
“So,” Karen said. “He went out and killed her like any self-respecting officer of the law would do, huh?”
“Maybe. At least think about it. Admit the possibility exists.”
Karen closed her eyes, trying to shut the moment out, then, shaking her head, “I do not believe we’re having this conversation. I swear, everyone’s gone weird. It’s all so surreal.”
“I hear you, honey. Will and I go back some, as well. This isn’t any easier for me than it is for you. Hell, I’ve got all the evidence in black and white and I’m having trouble believing it’s possible that Will could be our man.”
Karen rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger for a quiet minute, and then looked over at Garcia and said, “I need some more coffee. Maybe it’ll help with this headache.”
“Yeah, more coffee. Sounds good. Uh, you buying?”
Good old Frank, she thought. The sky is falling and he’s worried about who’s paying. “Yeah, I’m buying.”
As though she had ESP, Michelle showed up at the table with the coffee pot and her warm smile. As she was filling the cups, Karen asked if she had the table bugged, because they had just that second said how much they wanted more coffee. The waitress laughed and said, “No, I’m just Israeli and a waitress. We need to know these things to survive. Here’s your check as well.” She turned to Frank, and said, “Frank, tatala, come back another time when you’re not in such a rush. I want you should tell me about the case with the big football player, Kyle Sands. He comes here all the time. Such a nice boychick. I never saw a nasty look on his face or heard an unkind word from his mouth. I would bet everything I have that he had nothing to do with killing that girl. Oy vey. I don’t like to say bad about the dead, but she was a real looker!”
“That’s not bad,” Karen said. “I like it when people say I’m good looking.”
“No, sweetie, I don’t say she looks good, I say, she’s a looker. I’m meaning, all the time she’s looking to see if there’s other men out there looking back at her. She could as well been wearing a sign that announced ‘available.’ You understand my meaning? Kyle was such a good person. He used to take his mother to breakfast, lunch, snack, just to spend time with her. You don’t see that so much anymore.”
“Well, Michelle, you ought to be sure he has your name in case he needs character witnesses. Coming from you, he sounds like a saint,” Frank chuckled, and watched as she turned and went to another table where people had just been seated. He then looked over at Karen, who was rubbing her temples and looked close to tears.
“Oh, man, I came at you with this out of nowhere, I know,” Frank said. “Let’s take it slow, because we have a lot of pieces to fill in here. I don’t know where Batan fits in, either. Maybe he saw or heard something that made him dangerous to Will. And as far as Fraga, is he involved in the murders or is he just a perverted drug pusher who was at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I don’t know,” Karen answered. “Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation that we’re not seeing. Like, maybe Will accidentally touched the gun after we picked it up. Isn’t there a chance it could be something simple like that?”
“I don’t see it. Follow me step by step here. The first murder. Okay, she’s with Sands, they fight. That we, and everyone in town, knows. Sands says when he left her she was still yelling. Nobody paid attention to her because she had a rep as a partier with a big mouth, right? Oh, and everyone’s got a tight alibi for that night but the football hero, and he’s not stupid. So it stands to reason if he did her, he’d have had an airtight alibi, or at least wouldn’t have set it up to make himself the chief suspect from the get-go. Too pat. We got more head cases running around in this investigation, it’s just a matter of which nut did it.”
Karen reluctantly nodded. “My question is still how did Will’s prints get on the gun? He wasn’t there before Batan died. In fact, he was with me ‘til an hour or so before I got the urgent call from the kid.”
“An hour’s a long time and Miami Beach is a small place.”
“C’mon Frank. Maybe Will took his
gloves off for a second, a little break in procedure on the scene. He figures no harm, no foul, and lets it go without saying anything.”
“Sounds good, but you know as well as I do that Will would no more take his gloves off at a crime scene than he’d...”
“Murder someone?” she broke in.
“Yeah, murder someone, Karen.”
She winced. “So how could he have gotten the gun? I mean, how could he have even known the gun was there for the getting? It doesn’t work here.”
“The big question is how he got the gun. We know he was having a problem with, well, say for the sake of argument, Jessica Benson. She was playing around with how many guys? Maybe he heard about the girls as well. She’s notorious about teasing one with the other, so maybe he got word of it. That’s gotta be salt in his wounds.
“Will’s always had a taste for fast women. Maybe he got in too deep with this one, she dumps him, and we all know about Will’s temper. But he’s smart. He bides his time. Keeps an eye on her and waits for the right opportunity. Bam! He knows the QB got all riled up at that party...”
Karen cut him off. “Hold up here. Listen to what you’re saying. First you talk about Will’s violent temper and then you’re saying he’s a patient stalker. Which is it?”
“It doesn’t matter. If he’s behind this, he’s crazy and wouldn’t necessarily follow a pattern. Maybe he’s got the temper of a criminal, but the patience of a cop. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Like I said, he gets pissed, waits ‘til the time is right and does her. Fraga talked about a phantom lover, didn’t he?”
“This is ridiculous. Unacceptable. Let’s just put it to rest and stop it now,” she argued.
But in Karen’s mind the picture was starting to come together. Will hadn’t been himself. Garcia was making a good case against him. And the fingerprints. The knot in her stomach made it difficult to catch her breath. “God, I hate what we’re saying.”
“Yeah, but it all fits. I know the gun is a big question, but it’s not so out there. You know, he could’ve tossed the doctor’s office as well. Voila, gun!”
“Yeah,” Karen responded. “And you think he was going through Fraga’s office for what reason? The doctor had something that Will wanted or needed, so he would risk his career to find it? Oh right, silly me! He needed the gun to kill Feyzi Batan. Because, why? He was jealous? Jessica was already dead!”
“Don’t do this to yourself. You gotta look at this like a cop, not as Will’s friend. It’s just as hard for me you know. Without too much of a stretch, all the pieces are sliding into the right slots. Maybe he tossed the place looking for anything that might incriminate him, found the gun and kept it—for whatever reason.”
“Like to kill Feyzi?” she asked.
“Maybe. Like I said before, maybe Feyzi knew something. Could have tried to blackmail Will.”
Karen blew air out between her teeth. “We’re going in circles. A motive would be good.”
“I thought blackmail sounded right, but what about when he called you that afternoon wanting to see you pronto? You get to his house, and what? He’s dead. A murder made to look like a suicide. How come Will wasn’t with you on that call, huh?”
“Batan asked me to come alone.”
“So there it is. Batan wants to talk to you without Will. Why do you suppose that was?”
“Will was pretty tough on him during our first meeting. Actually, he was tough on everyone involved in this case. I just figured Batan would be more comfortable talking without Will’s hammering away at him.”
“Did Will know about the call?”
She nodded slowly. “We were at lunch together when he called.”
Frank snapped his fingers. “There you go! That explains a lot. How’d he handle giving it over to you. Did he give you a hard time about going without him? Better still, could he have gotten there ahead of you? We know whoever did it was on the run.”
“I don’t know. He was just Will about it. Spouted off a little and then split. I had to get back to the station before I headed over to Batan’s and Will had errands, shit!” Karen paused, scrunched her eyebrows together and started to speak, much more slowly now.
“Actually, now that I think about it, we were with Whitney and Pedrosa when he called. Will sent me back to the station with them, and took off. Oh God, Will!”
Garcia took in a deep breath. “I gotta tell you, Karen. When I got the report on the prints back, I ran through every possible scenario that could exclude him. But it just kept coming back to Will. Making the call to you this morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
Karen shook her head in denial. But she knew Frank was right. When it all came together it actually could have been Will.
It was Feyzi Batan’s phone call that nudged her over the edge. He was spooked, for sure. She should have caught that at the time. The thought that maybe he had seen or heard something that he wasn’t able to talk about in front of the two of them never crossed her mind.
Will might not have recognized Feyzi at first, but when Feyzi contacted her about meeting alone, it could have set Will to thinking. I took my time getting over to his place. And there definitely would have been time for Will to make the fatal visit before she got there.
Frank broke the silence. “So what now?”
“Just wondering. If we go to Will and he’s innocent, he’ll never forgive us. If he’s guilty, uh, if he’s guilty, we better get out of his way.”
“True. But we have to move on this. I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet. It’s just me and you. Chin up, girl. There’s always the chance that when it comes out, Will laughs us out of town and we’ll end up feeling like real jackasses.”
Karen shook her head and gave him a weak smile, “Whatever. But we have to stick together, go to him and talk it out. I can get him out of the squad room, but where do we go? Can’t go anywhere there’s an audience, because if this blows up...”
“I’m with you. This has to the handled so we can contain the situation. We could take a drive, or maybe go to your place. He’s comfortable there and no one will bother us.”
“I suppose. Yeah. Why not? Maybe I should call him and have him meet us there. I can tell him I need to see him. He’d never suspect anything, and then we can deal with you being there when he arrives.”
“Let’s get outta here.”
Garcia crossed himself, and Karen said a silent prayer of her own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
O nce outside, Karen made the call to Will who had been waiting for her in the squad room. He didn’t ask any questions, but rather, expressed concern. “You sound upset, doll. Everything okay?”
No, she thought. Nothing’s okay. It took everything she had to keep it light and sincere. “Sure, I just need to talk to you about something, in private. I’m at my place now. Can you get away?
“Is it so important you can’t come to the station. I don’t mean to jerk you around, kiddo, but we’re mighty deep in crap over here and we ought to take care of first things first if you don’t have an emergency.
“Sorry, but this really is urgent. It shouldn’t take long, and it’s not something I want to take over to the station. Please, Will, I don’t think this can wait. Couldn’t you get away for a little while?”
“Of course, of course. If it’s that important, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Hold tight.”
She felt like a rat, sitting here at her place with Frank, like commandos waiting in ambush. Karen thought she had reached her lowest low. Will would be wild when he walked in and had a moment to assess the situation, his partner and best friend sitting in silence, about to go for his jugular.
It didn’t even take a full fifteen minutes until Will’s booming knock shook the front door.
“Hey girl, you in there or what?”
Karen held her breath and paced reluctantly to the door. She opened it and Will stood looking at her, his eyes full of compassion and his hand out tow
ard her.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You want to put yesterday behind us. I know, it’s been rough on me too. We’re all under a lot of pressure and we’re saying stuff that we don’t mean. Consider it all forgotten, and you have my apology as well for some of the stuff I’ve said and done. Let’s just, as you like to say, move on.”
She forced a smile she didn’t feel, stepped back and asked him to come in. He followed her to the living room and stopped dead when he saw Garcia.
“Frank? Hey, what’s going on here?” He looked skeptically at Karen and shook his head.
“Oh man! You’re not going to tell me you two got something going on. God all mighty, I never saw this coming. You ought to know better than to shit where you sleep, huh?” He waited a short beat and then began to shake with laughter. “You sly dogs! Well, I’m glad you decided to count me in. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I was starting to imagine. Damn. This is sure out of the blue, but don’t worry, I won’t divulge this to anyone, even under penalty of death. Does your wife know, Frank?” He chuckled and cuffed Garcia on his cheek.
“Will, turn it off,” Garcia warned. “It’s not about me or her. Sit down and take a load off.”
He made no move to sit, and winked conspiratorially at a somber Frank Garcia. “Right, sure. Well, I guess I’ve had my share of crazy lately, too, working all that overtime and not getting enough nookie on the side.”
Effervescing, but not the least bit convincing, he finally walked to the sofa and sat, crossing his right leg over his left knee. He bounced his leg up and down with such vengeance that he appeared to be seizing.
Karen thought she had seen Will in every possible situation before today, and certainly she had witnessed most of his moods. But this was a different Will. They had been in shootouts together and he never flinched. Now he was nervous, jumpy even. Trying much too hard.
Tension was palpable in the room, and she and Frank looked from one to the other, realizing they had not framed a plan on who would start or what exactly they would say. Finally, Karen could no longer take the silence and said,” Will, I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to start.” He stared up at her, narrowing his eyes, his face growing dark with apprehension.
The Mystery of Jessica Benson Page 20