‘That’d be great,’ she said as they awkwardly faced each other. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but that was just a guess based on him being an FBI agent. He looked closer to twenty or twenty-one, but Lauren knew the requirements of getting in the Bureau meant he had to be at least twenty-five. With a shiny gold wedding ring on his left hand, he looked like the type of Boy Scout who would marry his high school sweetheart, all clean cut and straight-laced. ‘Excuse me,’ Lauren told him as she turned away from his earnest brown eyes and addressed her boss. ‘Sarge, I found out some very interesting things during the notification.’
Lauren rehashed the entire visit to the Hudson household to both of them. When she was done, the sarge leaned back from his desk, eyebrows knit together, hands now folded in his lap. ‘You’re telling me the dad had no idea he had a son in Iceland.’
‘But the siblings did, at least the older one. And neither of them were very concerned that he’d been brutally murdered last night.’
The sergeant’s forehead crinkled the way it did when something concerned him. ‘You’re bringing them both in, right?’
Lauren nodded. ‘I told them I want them in here this afternoon. They weren’t too thrilled about that either, but I want to lock them into their statements as soon as possible.’
‘Make it happen.’ The sarge straightened up, rearranging the stapler and tape dispenser on his desk. His big hands were fidgety that way. He’d been known to have a touch of OCD all the way back to their days in the police academy. ‘And talk to the nurse in private, away from the house. Sounds like she knows more than she could tell with everyone there.’
Lauren put that to the top of her mental checklist. ‘I want Gunnar’s phone records. I’d love to know if he was talking or texting with either of the siblings while he was here.’
‘I can take the phone over to the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and try to dump it,’ the kid volunteered. ‘Your sergeant showed me the crime scene and evidence photos. He had an older model smartphone without the six-digit encryption. We should be able to get into it. It might take a while, but we should be able to crack it. And I can send the transcripts to our interpreters to translate, if need be.’
‘You work in the computer lab, am I right?’
‘Yes.’ His face flushed a little. ‘I just transferred here from the bureau branch in Dallas. But I have my master’s degree in computer science from the University of Arizona. I’m originally from Green Valley.’
‘So this is your first winter in Buffalo?’ Lauren asked.
He glanced at the snow falling lightly outside of the sarge’s window. ‘It’s my first real winter anywhere.’
The sarge clapped his hands together, signaling they should move the meet-and-greet outside of his office. ‘OK then. Let’s work together and get on top of this thing. Special Agent Lawton—’
‘Matt,’ he cut in.
‘OK, Matt,’ the sarge conceded. ‘Matt here says they have a liaison in the Netherlands who will contact the Icelandic authorities and put us in touch with his family over there. And please call Doug Sheehan, he’s been blowing up my phone since Matt arrived.’
‘Your truck is in your regular spot,’ Lauren told the sarge, then turned back to Matt. ‘Let’s see if I can find you a desk to work from.’
‘Thank you and good work on the notification and the background info,’ the sarge called as they were walking back out into the hall. ‘At least we have a jumping off point now.’
Instead of getting rebuked like she thought she would, Lauren got an attaboy. And an actual boy.
He walked next to her with his hands shoved deep in his suit pants pockets. ‘I’m twenty-nine, in case you were wondering.’
Off by a couple years, but she was in the ballpark. ‘I wasn’t,’ she lied.
‘I know I look a little young.’ He looked a lot young. Matt looked like he should be playing college baseball, catching fly balls, not catching killers.
‘So did I, once.’ Lauren smiled at him, knowing what it was like to be judged for your looks. ‘A long, long time ago, before this job sucked the life out of me. Don’t worry, you’ll get there.’
He laughed out loud at that. ‘Thanks.’
She opened the door to her crew’s office. ‘You can take my partner’s desk for now.’ She led him over to Reese’s workspace. ‘He got a grazing gunshot wound in March, fell forward, and fractured his skull. He won’t be back for at least another two months.’
‘That sounds awful. Sorry to hear it,’ he said, slinging the bag he was carrying onto the floor next to the desk.
‘Not as sorry as I am.’ Lauren straightened a picture of Watson she had displayed on Reese’s desk in his absence. They had moved into the new police headquarters while Reese was still in the hospital. He’d never actually sat at his own desk yet. ‘He and his dog are staying with me until he’s cleared to come back to work.’ She turned away from Matt. ‘Cops make the worst patients and even worse houseguests.’
If Matt thought it was strange that she had her partner living with her, he didn’t say anything. And she really didn’t feel like explaining their relationship to him. Matt let that topic go and so did she. What would she say about it anyway? She wasn’t sure how to categorize it herself anymore.
Matt sat in Reese’s chair and surveyed the clutter. Reaching over, he touched the top of a Jim Kelly bobblehead perched on a stack of files with the tip of his finger, sending it bopping up and down. ‘Do you think he’d mind if I—’
‘Cleaned up a little? He hasn’t even been in this new office yet. Just make a pile and stuff it in a drawer. I tried to recreate the actual paperwork tsunami that was on his desk. As you can see, it’s in no particular order.’
Matt started to stack up the papers.
‘This is my desk right here,’ Lauren motioned to the next desk over. ‘I have to return some phone calls. You good for now?’
He opened the bottom left drawer and slid a bunch of random items in. ‘The sergeant made me copies of all the reports so far. I’ll get on the family notification in Iceland. My boss has already been on the phone to the state department and the Icelandic consulate in New York City.’
‘Thank God,’ she told him. ‘I had no idea who to contact. Believe it or not, foreign citizens don’t get murdered much in Buffalo.’
‘That’s a good thing, right?’
‘Right. But our investigations are usually a little more straight forward than this.’
Matt rocked back and forth, testing the chair. It was wobbly. ‘You can wad up some napkins and stuff them under that leg,’ she told him. ‘That’ll fix it.’
He looked like he was going to say something else about the condition of the office equipment for a split second, but thought better of it and instead asked, ‘So what’s our next move?’
‘I want to bring the brother and sister in later, probably around four o’clock, give them time to stew and see if their stories change.’
‘Suspicious of the family already?’ He reached down into his bag, careful of the tilting chair and then plunked a laptop down in the middle of the desk.
‘Homicide 101,’ she replied, thumbing through her notes before putting them aside. ‘Always clear the loved ones first. If you can. Then go on from there.’ She picked up the receiver to the landline on her desk. She always used the old-fashioned phone when possible. Truth be told, she’d dump her cell phone altogether if she could. She hated feeling so connected all the time. Only the year before had her daughters managed to convince her to get on social media. She now had twenty-four friends on Facebook.
Matt didn’t respond to that, and instead kept unpacking his things and she hoped he didn’t think that she was talking down to him. Lauren didn’t want them to get off on the wrong foot. She was only in her early twenties when she got into the police department, so she also had been hampered by looking young. She actually liked this kid already. He was eager and smart without being
pushy. After almost twenty years on the job, Lauren was still working on the pushy part.
She punched in Doug Sheehan’s number and waited while the phone rang in her ear. Just when she was about to hang up, Lauren heard a breathless, ‘Hello?’
‘Doug,’ she grabbed a pen and started twirling it with her fingers, ‘what’s the emergency? I got caught up at the family’s house doing the notification.’
‘You’re not still there, are you?’
‘No, I’m at the office.’ She bent forward over her desk and pulled her notebook to her. ‘Tell me what Dr Heartly said.’
‘Gunnar Jonsson had a total of seven separate blunt force trauma wounds: three to the face and four to the skull, effectively crushing it. Defensive wounds to both hands; scrapes and abrasions from trying to grab the brick. He was hit so hard a piece of it was lodged among the skull fragments.’ In the background she heard some rustling, like he was getting out of bed. ‘Did the father say he had a beef with anyone here?’
Lauren took a second to digest that last fact. ‘The dad had no idea Gunnar existed until he showed up on his doorstep a week ago.’
‘Really?’
‘No clue. But his two siblings weren’t too happy about it.’
‘We got no idea who the assailant might be?’ he asked. ‘The family members check out?’
‘I spoke to the brother and sister briefly,’ she told Sheehan. ‘They both gave weak alibis. I’m going to be following up on that angle.’
‘Dr Heartly gave me her take on how the crime possibly went down. Want to hear it?’
‘Let me guess.’ Scribbling her notes as fast as she could, Lauren squashed the phone to her cheek with her shoulder and asked, ‘Whoever did this struck him both in front and in the back?’
‘Yes. From the stain pattern on his jacket and pants, the doctor theorized the killer knocked him to the pavement with a blow to the head. He must have managed to get on his back and tried to defend himself before getting up and trying to run away. The perpetrator just kept striking him. Vicious, is how Heartly put it.’
‘And the brick? Any chance we can trace it?’
‘Doubtful. Common construction grade. There are two sites within three hundred yards of the crime scene, doing repair work to buildings. It could have come from either of those. There must be thirty projects going on in downtown Buffalo right now.’
‘You sound exhausted,’ she told him, catching the hitch in his voice. Lauren was starting to feel the lack of sleep herself.
‘I am. I’m at home. I just fell asleep when you called.’
‘Go back to bed. The FBI sent someone here to help.’ She saw Matt glance over at her. ‘Come in when you wake up and I’ll give you everything I’ve got so far.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ was all he said and hung up.
Lauren took a minute to go through her notes before she turned to Matt, who was staring at her, waiting for her to address him. She wanted to make sure she had everything straight in her head before she spoke. Lauren used to tease Reese that he had no filter, so she started nagging him into practicing the fine art of pausing before he spoke, which sometimes made him appear like an idiot, other times like an ass, but it had saved him from countless embarrassments. Not all embarrassments, but enough.
‘That was my temporary partner, Doug Sheehan. You’ll meet him later, maybe. He went to the autopsy this morning. Our victim definitely died of blunt force trauma from multiple blows to the head and face.’
‘I’d better call my boss,’ Matt said, reaching for his cellphone on the desk.
‘Just wait on that,’ Lauren said, stopping him in mid-dial. ‘Let’s get the siblings in first. See what they have to say.’
He put the phone back down. ‘You really like the brother or sister for this?’
‘I really want to find out who did this to Gunnar. The siblings are the only leads we have right now. How long did you say it would take to get into his phone?’
He shrugged. ‘Anywhere from a couple hours to a couple months, but I doubt it will take that long. Best guesstimate, with that brand of phone, a couple days at most.’
Lauren had to hand it to the Bureau, as much as local cops groused about having to work with them, they really did have access to so many more resources. ‘I’m going to set up these interviews with Ryan and Brooklyn. Then we should take a ride to the hotel and talk to the cleaning staff. See what they remember about Gunnar.’
‘I’ll make sure the computer lab makes his phone a priority.’
Twenty minutes later they were in his spotless FBI ride heading back to the hotel. Both of the siblings tried to find excuses to blow them off, which was met by Lauren’s cheerful offer to come pick them up, at which they kindly agreed to come in on their own. Ryan was coming in at four o’clock with his wife and would bring Brooklyn with them. She would divide them once they got to headquarters and interview them separately.
It never ceased to amaze Lauren how the light of day changed a crime scene. The mouth of the alley, which seemed so ominous the night before, now appeared as just a benign cut-through to the next street over. The crime scene tape had been removed and the news cameras long gone. She wondered if the hotel manager had sent someone to shovel away the bloody ice and snow that had clogged the walkway. It’s so easy to wash away the physical remnants of someone’s horrific death, Lauren thought. But something always remains behind, doesn’t it?
‘Park here in the fire lane,’ Lauren directed, pointing to the spot next to the valet stand.
‘We can’t park there,’ Matt said, eyeing up the no parking sign.
‘Sure, we can. Watch.’ Lauren unclipped her badge from her belt as the red-jacketed valet approached Matt’s car. Rolling down her window, Lauren stuck the badge out. ‘Buffalo Police, official investigation.’
The young valet nodded, holding his hands up as he backed away, retreating to the valet stand.
‘If you get in trouble with your bosses, tell them I made you do it,’ she said, gathering up her things.
‘You made me? That’ll go over with my SAC like a fart in church.’
‘Your special agent in charge and I have known each other for a long time. He’ll believe it.’ She’d worked with his SAC on a detail years back, when she was in the Special Victims Unit, before he got promoted. He learned very quickly that Lauren’s favorite tactic in getting her way was to annoy people into submission.
The hotel looked different in the December sunshine as well. Gone was the sparkle from the twinkling white lights strung up everywhere. Now evergreen wreaths popped in every window with bright red ribbons and holly berries. The grand tree in the lobby, which she hadn’t paid attention to last night, seemed to loom over the front desk.
A young lady looked up as they approached. ‘May I help you?’
Still with badge in hand, Lauren held it up for her. ‘Detective Riley with the Buffalo Police Homicide Squad. This is special agent Lawton with the FBI. We’re here about the murder last night.’
Her eyes went wide; her hand went to her chest. She leaned in toward Lauren and Matt. ‘I saw it on the news last night. How awful. And the killer is still out there, right?’
‘What’s your name?’ Lauren asked gently. She was definitely the easily traumatized, delicate flower type.
‘Angela Nguyen. I’m the daytime front desk manager. Gunnar was such a doll. We loved having him as a guest here.’ Her dark eyes started to look moist. ‘I can’t believe this happened to him.’
‘You interacted with Gunnar a lot?’ Matt threw in, trying to get her back on track. At least he knew the basics of interviewing techniques and how to apply them.
Angela’s eyes turned to Matt. ‘He was very nice. The quiet, friendly type, you know? He spoke perfect English. I must have asked him a hundred questions about Iceland the day he checked in. I wanted to go on an all-girls’ trip there with my friends – because he said it was so safe.’
‘Did he have any visitors while he stayed he
re?’ Lauren asked.
‘Just one, that I know of. The guy said he was his brother. Gunnar’s husband came down from their room and the two of them had words in the lobby, then the brother left.’
‘Husband?’ Lauren asked.
‘Mr Steinarsson checked in with Gunnar. Did you know that in Iceland women take their father’s first name and tack dóttir on the back of it and men take their dad’s name and stick son on the end? Even when you get married you don’t change your last name.’ She glanced around the lobby, a look of worry passing over her face. ‘I haven’t seen Mr Steinarsson all day. Is he all right?’
ELEVEN
‘Are you sure he was Gunnar Jonsson’s husband?’ Lauren asked.
Now Angela stumbled a little. ‘They checked in together. And after he explained about the Icelandic last names, I guess I just assumed.’
‘But they were definitely a couple?’ Lauren asked.
‘Mr Steinarsson stayed in the room a lot while Gunnar was out every day. When Gunnar came back to the hotel, they went out together. They seemed very affectionate toward each other.’
The manager took a deep breath. ‘Take your time,’ Lauren told her. ‘I know it’s a shock.’
‘I just never knew anyone that was murdered before. And right here, where I work. I can’t believe someone would hurt him. He was so friendly and nice. He told me this was his first time in America, and he was so excited.’ Angela sniffed and grabbed a tissue from under the counter, blowing her nose. The poor kid was probably right out of college, probably had never seen a fraction of the awful things people do to each other. The protective bubble of her middle-class world had just been violently popped.
‘Can you check and see if Mr Steinarsson checked out? Maybe when you weren’t working,’ Lauren asked, thinking that one of the night managers might have assisted him when he learned of Gunnar’s death.
She punched the keyboard in front of her. ‘Mr Jonsson made the reservation. Requested a king-sized bed, but it looks like Mr Steinarsson was never put on the reservation.’
‘And you’re sure they shared the same room?’ Lauren hadn’t seen one indication of another man in that hotel room: not an extra tie, not two razors, nothing. If he had been staying with Gunnar, he had completely cleared out.
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