Walking Shadows

by Faye Kellerman

“Not specifically, no. Just one day I ran into her with the boy.” She paused. “What is Joe Junior now? I know he’s older than my kids. Must be older than thirty.”

  “He’s thirty-five,” McAdams said.

  “And you’re saying that Brady and Joe were friends?”

  “They worked together at Bigstore. It seems they became friends.”

  Jennifer made a sour face. “Don’t know anything about that. Still, it’s sad about Jaylene being in the hospital.”

  Decker said, “Mrs. Neil, would you mind if I searched your entire house?”

  “You already did that.”

  “I searched the basement. It’s possible that Brady might have hidden something in your part of the house.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

  “Could be anything . . . papers, electronics . . . possibly drugs.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “I’d still like to look.”

  “Okay, but not today. I’m too tired.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” She walked over to the front door and opened it. “Call me before you come.”

  “You don’t have a phone number.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” Jennifer smiled. “In that case, just wait until I call you.”

  Once in the car, McAdams said, “I know what you’re going to ask. How can she afford a new iPhone when she’s living on assistance? My answer to that is to look at all these scumbag criminals. They may live like shit, but they all have money for phones.”

  “But hers was new and it was from Walmart. She didn’t even go to Bigstore, where no doubt she could get a discount. And did you notice her purse? It’s also new—Kathy Spode made especially for Walmart—at least a hundred bucks. Where is she getting all that spending cash?”

  “She found a stash of cash that Brady had hidden.”

  “It’s as good an explanation as any.” Decker thought a moment. “We should check to see if Brady had a life insurance policy.”

  “You honestly think?”

  “Long shot, but you never know. Rule one is victims are usually murdered by those closest to them. Rule two is follow the money trail. Jennifer seems to be looking good in both those categories.”

  “She murdered her own son?”

  “I don’t know, Harvard. They weren’t close. I’ve been focusing on her husband because he’s a bad guy. And he’s worth looking at. But he’s been in prison for a very long time. I’m beginning to think that my time is better spent looking closer to home.”

  “I haven’t been at this as long as you have, but how many cases have you worked where parents have murdered their children?”

  “With children over five, maybe two or three times. One of the messiest was a divorce case. The dad was getting even with the mom and murdered the entire family. Murdering your child for insurance money does happen. But it’s rare.”

  “There you go.”

  “There I go nothing,” Decker retorted. “Rare doesn’t mean never.”

  The library catalog was computerized, but old copies of the Hamiltonian were still on microfiche. The machines sat in a remote corner and looked like they hadn’t been used in ages. Rina took out a pair of strong reading glasses and decided to start with the year of the Levine murders. She’d work forward, and then she’d go backward.

  The murders had dominated the front pages for six months. The information was pretty much what she had read on the internet, but seeing the amount of space given over to the double homicides brought home how shocking it had been to the community.

  It was clear from the get-go that the motive was robbery—the whydunit—but the whodunit was not as immediate. It took a month before Brandon Gratz and Kyle Masterson were arrested for the robbery/murders. Gratz was identified from a lineup by Gregg Levine, then twenty. He swore that Gratz was the man he had seen removing his mask. A search of their hidey-hole in Nashville produced jewelry taken from the robbery. Not all the pieces, but enough to tie the noose around Gratz’s and Masterson’s necks.

  At the trial and faced with the evidence against them, Gratz and Masterson admitted to the robbery. But both adamantly refused to confess to the murders and continued to profess their innocence. And there were inconsistencies that backed up the claim. Though both owned guns, the firearms that were legally registered did not match the firearm that was used in the murder. But that meant nothing according to the D.A. Robbers used unregistered or stolen guns. Between possessing stolen gems and the eyewitness testimony, the case was a slam dunk, yielding convictions for both robbery and the double murders.

  After the sentencing of the two men to twenty years to life—looked on by the community as a travesty for such a heinous crime—the murders slowly faded from print. What took its place were human interest stories regarding the Levine family. Since the children weren’t talking to the papers, it fell to the reporters to sidestep direct quotes and infer stories about a family struggling to come to terms with such horror.

  As if it were ever possible.

  Those columns lasted a few months. Eventually the Levine family was only mentioned as participating in charity functions and at the anniversaries of the deaths of Glen and Lydia Levine.

  It was eleven in the morning by the time Rina finished reading about the murders. Her eyes were tired, and her shoulders and neck ached from hunching. What she had learned wasn’t new. She broke for a quick lunch, eating a sandwich in the car. Then she took a walk around the block to buy a cup of coffee and tried to clear her head.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was refreshed enough to squint and strain her eyes for round two of reading. This time, she’d work from the murders and go back in time, trying to flesh out Glen and Lydia Levine.

  It was harder to find out information about them while they were living. The one thing that stood out was their copious amount of charity—always giving to the community: the police, the firemen, the schools, the homeless, the halfway houses. Two years before he was murdered, Glen was elected president of his temple. Two years before she was murdered, Lydia ran for city council but lost to the incumbent.

  Rina kept searching and searching and searching until her eyes got buggy and blurry. But she soldiered on, going back a year before the murders.

  Ten minutes later, she hit a front-page article that caused her heartbeat to quicken and her head to swim. The article headline was about a couple who skipped town the previous week, a few days before they were to be sentenced for fraud and embezzlement. She had to read it twice to make sure she wasn’t making a mistake.

  Time seemed to pass quickly. Going back in the records: two years before the murders when the first charges were made.

  And then she read—and she read—and she read.

  Chapter 15

  The two men got out and walked to the front entrance of the Boch house, blocked by a banner of yellow crime scene tape. Decker ducked under the ribbon and inserted the key in the lock. As soon as he opened the door, a whiff of warm fetid air rushed out. Having been sealed for twelve hours, the interior smelled ripe. He and McAdams gloved up and went inside. Fingerprint dust was everywhere, revealing numerous hand and shoe prints. Decker said, “Watch where you step.”

  “It stinks of excrement. That’s shit in layman’s terms.”

  “Probably from where the old lady was tied up. She was here for a few days. Unable to move. She soiled herself.”

  “Poor woman. How is she doing?”

  “Better than when I found her, but basically no change from yesterday.” He gave McAdams a face mask and then put one over his mouth and nose. “It doesn’t do too much with the smell, but we shouldn’t be breathing in human biological matter. I’ll take the two bedrooms where it smells really bad. You go through the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.”

  “Thank you. Am I looking for anything specific?”

  “Just the usual: stashes of money or drugs, old documents, papers. Anything hidden will be significant.” A pause. “Something t
hat could explain the slaughterhouse in the back bedroom.”

  “Didn’t Hamilton PD already comb the place?”

  “SID was doing their thing, and the detectives didn’t have a lot of room to conduct their search. Tran and Smitz are planning to meet us here. They want to inspect things more carefully.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe thirty minutes. Let’s get a head start.”

  Decker focused his search in the back. That room had been gone over with someone opening the interior of the mattress and rummaging through the closets. There wasn’t much left to do except reexamine what had been examined, and that took all of fifteen minutes.

  Jaylene’s bedroom was the most odiferous. And while the mattress hadn’t been ripped apart, it had been stripped and moved, exposing the box spring. Decker took a quick peek under the mattress and examined the box spring for alteration—nothing to the naked eye. He felt the top; he ran his hand over the bottom. Nothing out of the ordinary. He studied the underside of the bed. Lots of dust bunnies on the floor but nothing suspicious. He searched the closet: the clothes, the pockets in the clothes, the lining in the pockets. There was a cabinet inside the closet that had canes and braces and several walkers. At one time, Jaylene might have been more mobile. Or perhaps she couldn’t walk too well before the accident. Along with the medical equipment, there was a shoebox on the top shelf.

  He took it down and looked inside—old photographs. Lots of them. Some of them were in the era of one-hour-development photo shops; some were old colored Polaroids that were brown and faded. There were even some scalloped-edged black and whites. Decker decided to bag the box and the contents as evidence. He’d sift through them later.

  Perhaps if there was a box with old photographs, there was also one with old letters and mementos that might be significant. He searched the closet but didn’t find any more shoeboxes—or any other boxes, for that matter.

  On a top shelf in the closet was a set of luggage—two suitcases and a carry-on. The insides were empty. Decker studied the lining to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. Everything seemed intact. Then he patted down the lining around the bags to make sure they didn’t feel thick. He hoisted them up to see if he could see something in the light.

  Nothing.

  Once he was done with the closet, he went through the nightstand, opening the top drawer. Inside was a collection of nothing: a comb, a brush, a nail file, a nail scissors, three pairs of glasses, a box of bandages, and random hardware. On the open bottom shelf was a pile of three paperbacks. Jaylene’s dresser held mostly clothes. Other items included old buttons, rubber bands, desiccated sachet packets, and odd bits of junk.

  The bathroom cabinet held lots of OTC medication as well as prescription drugs including Vicodin and OxyContin. No surprise there. The woman must be in constant pain. Decker looked inside vials and pill bottles and smelled the contents. Without analyzing the substances, he couldn’t swear that the pills were what the label claimed they were, but there was nothing telltale in sight or in odor. He closed the medicine cabinet door. The tiled counter was lower than normal to accommodate her handicap. It held another brush, several tubes of lipstick, some makeup powders, and an eyeliner. The old woman still cared, and that was nice.

  Decker checked around the toilet. It had a cracked seat, but the commode was intact. He gave the handle a flush. Nothing was backed up, but it did leak water onto the floor. He checked the tank for drugs—nothing. She had a wheelchair shower. Decker looked for hidden cubbies inside the tiled walls, but he didn’t find anything. He left Jaylene’s bedroom and joined McAdams in the kitchen. Together they went through cans and boxes and bags of food, scouring through the contents and finding nothing untoward—no unwanted pills, crystals, or powders.

  An hour later, Decker’s cell rang. It was Wendell Tran.

  “We just got called out on another assault. This is unusual. Something must be in the air.”

  Decker pulled down his face mask until it dangled around his neck. “Yeah, it does go in waves.”

  “Are you out at the house?”

  “We are. We’re just about done.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Just a box of old photographs. I’d like to take it back and sift through the contents, if that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine with me. We’re pretty tied up at the moment. Give the box back when you’re done. Also, drop off the key. At some point, Randy and I need to go back to the house.”

  “Not a problem. Thank you.” Tran cut the line, and Decker stowed his phone in his pocket.

  “Are we just about done, or were you just cutting him off?” McAdams asked. “With you, I never can tell.”

  “Did you check all the sofa and chair cushions?”

  “Yes, I did. Nothing, to my eye, has been tampered with.”

  “All the seams looked untouched?”

  “Yes, everything looked intact.”

  “How about trapdoors?”

  “I didn’t find anything. Did you?”

  “No. If there’s something valuable hidden in here, I can’t find it.” Decker shrugged. “I found a shoebox filled with photographs. I didn’t find anything with mementos and/or old letters.”

  “You find that suspicious?”

  “Not really. Jaylene doesn’t impress me as a letter writer. I’ll go through these snapshots eventually . . . see if anything stimulates my brain cells. Which might be a bit difficult because I’ll have no idea who I’m looking at.”

  “At whom I’m looking,” McAdams said.

  Decker gave him a sour expression. “What would you have done if I would had said the sentence grammatically correct?”

  “I would have made fun of your proper English.”

  “In other words, I can’t win.”

  “Precisely. Can we get out of here? I think my nose has become desensitized, but I find it all very depressing.”

  “Sure. Let’s go.” Decker locked up. He took off his gloves and mask and almost made it to the car. But then he stopped cold.

  McAdams sighed. “What is it now?”

  “I just thought of something. You can wait in the car. It won’t take me long.”

  “No, boss, someone has to watch your back.” McAdams did an about-face and started walking in the other direction. “Are you coming?”

  Decker smiled. The once spoiled and petulant kid was becoming a seasoned detective. He jogged to catch up and then unlocked the front door. Both of them went inside. He slipped on another pair of gloves but didn’t bother with the mask. His nose, like McAdams’s, had become inured to the smell. He went into Jaylene’s bedroom and Tyler followed.

  “You had to pick the stinkiest room in the house.”

  “I did it on purpose.” He went over to her soiled wheelchair and felt the back strap—a thin piece of black leather stretched between the steel framework of the chair. When that seemed normal, he examined the stitching on the strap. Everything seemed okay.

  Next came the seat pad, black leather still flecked with fecal material.

  Whoever said life was easy.

  Decker tried to take the pad off the chair, but it had been sewn on. He felt the top of the seat and ran his gloved hand over the arc of the seat cushion. It felt smooth from every direction. His next step was examining the stitching.

  “You’re dedicated,” McAdams said. “I’ll give you that. Sticking your nose that close.”

  “Not pleasant, but I’ve smelled worse.”

  “You also don’t bitch a lot. Why is that?”

  “Waste of energy.” Decker continued to inspect the stitching. “Aha! Look and learn, Harvard. Examine the sewing on the left side.”

  “It’s irregular. She could have had the seat restuffed and repaired.”

  “True enough.” Decker took out his phone and snapped several pictures. Then he pulled out a Swiss army knife and cut the stitching until he was able to lift up the yellow foam seat cushion inside the leather. He was silent. Then h
e said, “And we’ve got something.” Again, he took pictures on his phone. Then he wiggled his fingers between the cushion and the wooden bottom that supported the seat. Carefully, he pulled out a sealed manila envelope. The flap was glued down, and additionally, there was string latching the flap to the body of the envelope. Decker felt the contents.

  “Nothing too lumpy.” He pressed down on it again. “Feels like papers, but it could be drugs. Powder wrapped up in another envelope. I’ll take a picture of it unopened, and then drop it in an evidence bag. We’ll examine it at the station house—put it through the scanner before we crack open the seal.”

  “Good find, boss. I’m impressed.”

  “It was the only thing that I didn’t check out.” Decker smiled. “Process of elimination.”

  McAdams paused, then doubled over in laughter. “Who knew you were a natural punster?”

  Decker started laughing. It felt good to release the tension.

  The kid said, “Any idea what’s in there?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t find any old letters.”

  “But why would Jaylene hide them?”

  “No sense guessing. Let’s go back and find out.”

  “You are going to phone Tran and Smitz about this, right?”

  “Eventually. They just got called out on an assault. I don’t want to bother them with anything until I know what I found.”

  McAdams gave Decker a skeptical look. “No turf battles, then, huh? You’re just being considerate.”

  “Harvard, I’m a very nice guy.”

  The scanner didn’t reveal anything that looked like organic matter. Decker took the package into Radar’s office. The captain and McAdams served as witnesses when Decker undid the string, then slit open the flap.

  Inside were black-and-white grainy photographs—five of them. The long shots were clearer than the close-ups, but nothing was sharp and in focus. They all had one thing in common—the same woman in all the frames. Sometimes it was the woman with a man, but sometimes it was just the woman. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, but that was just a guess. Caucasian, medium build, probably brunette, although it was hard to discern with black and whites. The close-up blurred the features. The woman had a long face. There were two different men in the pictures. One had a round face, and the other one had a longer, older face. Two long shots showed the woman walking on a sidewalk among buildings—probably a city, because nothing looked very quaint—and drinking out of an espresso cup at a small, round café table.