Blood Score

by Jordan Dane

  When he got to McFarland’s suite, he saw that yellow and black crime scene tape sealed the front door as a warning, so no one unauthorized would enter. It was still an active crime scene until investigators were done. Cronan had to cut the tape to enter, using a folded knife he’d brought with him, stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. When he got inside, he flipped on the light switch to the living room and looked over the mess that the crime scene techs had left in their wake. Anything of significance would’ve been taken with them as evidence, but he’d come to see if they’d missed something.

  After he took a quick look around, he found a desk that McFarland might’ve used to pay bills and rummaged through it. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he would know it when he saw it. The man’s credit card statements didn’t show any obvious signs that McFarland had paid for a membership to Simone’s private club or even ate meals or paid for gas near the place. To keep memberships and patronage confidential, he knew Simone used the corporate billing name of ‘The Uncommon Jungle’ to ID her unique “services” without giving away the true nature of her business. Cronan knew what to look for, but nothing in McFarland’s bills sent up an alarm flare until he found a property tax statement.

  From correspondence with a legal firm, it seemed that Tim McFarland had inherited lakefront property on Lake Zurich from a deceased grandmother. A background check might have missed the property ownership since it took time for a change in title to show. He made a note of the address.

  After he did a thorough search of the rest of the premises, Cronan found nothing else to flag as important. That left McFarland’s private room to go over again. It made sense that if he had secrets, they would be locked away in a space he’d designed for such a thing, so the rest of his life could look squeaky clean.

  Schumacher and O’Brien had been thorough. He knew digital photos had been taken of the room layout. They’d dusted for fingerprints, and bagged the broken liquor bottle and the gift box as evidence, among other things, but Cronan had come for another reason. He came looking for something his team might’ve missed. He moved around the room and looked at it from odd angles, imagining what McFarland did in the room.

  That’s when he noticed the marks.

  The carpet showed well-worn indentations that seemed odd. The marks on the floor were too close to the TV screen for movie watching. McFarland had a sofa in the room that would’ve made a better spot for viewing. The indentations in the rug made Cronan curious. The man had a better TV in his main living room. Why spend so much time in this small cramped space that he had to leave carpet impressions this close to the screen?

  When Cronan found a chair that matched the indentations, he placed the seat where McFarland had it and sat. That put him squarely in front of the TV screen that must’ve hit the man at eye level.

  “Weird, dude,” he muttered. “For guys, TVs are like dicks. There’s no such thing as too big. Why go with this cheap ass television?”

  Seated where McFarland had been gave Cronan a new perspective. He shifted his eyes around the room and focused on areas within arm’s reach. He knocked on the walls and shelves behind the TV and heard nothing but a solid thud until one spot sounded hollow. Cronan stood and looked closer. When he leaned and put an ear to the wall, he heard a very faint hum. That could’ve been utilities, but Cronan pushed and prodded the spot until it opened.

  Inside, the hum got louder, and he saw a steady red light and electrical wires that led to something he recognized—surveillance gear.

  “Damn.”

  Cronan checked out the equipment and connected it to McFarland’s TV, to see how the set up worked. Several smaller screens, with channel numbers to identify the feeds, split and filled the TV. With a mouse stashed inside the wall compartment, any of the channels could be enlarged to fill the screen. Cronan looked for clues in the background to indicate who and what McFarland had targeted. Most of the feeds were dedicated to Chandler’s private home. He recognized the musician’s sound proof recording studio with its distinctive blood red designer sofa and the decor, but when he noticed a camera in the shower and bedroom, Cronan didn’t have to guess whose privacy McFarland had invaded.

  One video recording had been saved of Ethan showering. The date stamp had been the night Olivia Davenport had been murdered.

  “You sorry son of a bitch.”

  Not all surveillance had been of Ethan Chandler. Two channels were of other young men that Cronan saw moving in their homes. The interiors in the background looked to be from this building. He recognized the window views in one and decorator finishes in the other, although he couldn’t be sure what floor these men lived on. Apparently McFarland had stalked other young guys, but Ethan had been his obsession, given the number of camera channels dedicated to the musician.

  Even in his most secret space, McFarland had concealed his illegal activities enough that the evidence techs had missed it.

  “Did you take video souvenirs?”

  If McFarland had one recording, Cronan knew there would be more, but where were they? A stalker like McFarland, who collected memorabilia on his victim, wouldn’t settle for the instantaneous gratification of a live feed or only one recording when he could record and savor his intrusion over and over. He pictured McFarland having a front row seat for his five-on-one spankfest. When Cronan realized the purpose of the seat too close to the TV, he winced and stood as if he’d been shot from a cannon. All he wanted to do was shower again…and Angel would have nothing to do with his ‘need for clean’ this time.

  “Sick bastard.”

  If McFarland had gone to the trouble of hiding his illegal surveillance system, Cronan had no doubt that any recordings would have been hidden with the same care. A search of McFarland’s lake house shot to the top of his priority list. What had the guy recorded…and would any of it shed light on who killed Olivia? Had McFarland tried to blackmail Chandler? Is that what put him on the killer’s radar? Unless he found the digitals to back up his theory, he had nothing more than conjecture.

  “Did you off yourself? Or did someone think the world would be a better place without you?”

  Cronan wondered if Ethan knew about his neighbor’s obsessive interest in him. Had he any notion of how far his stalker had gone to become a part of the intimacy of his life? That backstage argument had to come from a history between Chandler and McFarland that now stretched to Rachel and Bryce and beyond.

  As he paced the floor staring at McFarland’s secret compartment, an idea took shape in Cronan’s mind.

  If McFarland’s death had been staged to look like a suicide—so Olivia’s real killer could point the finger at a dead man—how much did the murderer know about the man’s illegal surveillance of Chandler? McFarland’s room and his obsessive behavior felt secret. He couldn’t picture the guy sharing that with anyone, but if someone had a key to his residence and got a glimpse of his shrine to Chandler before a CPD investigative team had access to it, what could’ve been in plain sight and grabbed before Schumacher and company got there? Someone would’ve had time alone in McFarland’s place to plant the burner and check things out.

  That missing key had more implications and had turned into a greater mystery, but Cronan’s gut told him that McFarland kept his video collection somewhere special—the lake house.

  If evidence had been removed from McFarland’s residence, they may never know what had been worth killing over…or if the recordings had anything to do with Olivia’s death. But that also meant he and Angel would have an ace in the hole to draw out the real killer, if they played their cards right. With the possibility that more recordings were kept by McFarland at a recently inherited lake property, even a savvy killer might be curious enough to come out of hiding to find out.

  Cronan unhooked the TV and closed up the slot that housed the surveillance gear, careful to leave it as he’d found it. Discovering the equipment felt like a breakthrough that could be parlayed into more.

  If someone had kille
d McFarland and staged his death to look like a suicide, it had been a clever move to plant the burner phone to point the finger at McFarland for Olivia’s murder. But once the killer had his hands on McFarland’s key, he might’ve been surprised at what he found in his home. Whoever did that would have to leave the secret room in place to show McFarland as the stalker he was, to give the man a deeper motive. But if there were digital recordings of something embarrassing, or anything that led to another motive to kill Olivia, those recordings would be irresistible to the real killer, if Cronan’s theory held up.

  “Yeah, McFarland had a secret stash somewhere else. It could happen.” Cronan left the crime scene and locked it up.

  As he headed to the lobby, he thought about his next move. He liked the idea of drawing out a ruthless killer, but he had mixed feelings about the videos. He should’ve been happier, but he didn’t know how Angel would take the news that Ethan’s privacy had been invaded and there could be recordings of God knew what.

  For Angel’s sake, Cronan wanted to give the musician the benefit of the doubt that he’d been telling his partner the truth about Olivia being the one into the rough stuff, but what if he’d lied about that and there was undisputed proof? Lying about his sex life didn’t make Chandler a killer. He could only be protecting his reputation, but Cronan had learned from many other cases that liars had more to hide.

  Either way, he knew Angel wouldn’t like questioning everything she’d come to believe about Ethan Chandler.

  ***

  After midnight

  Angel lay in her bed in the dark, staring at the shadows of her ceiling. On her nightstand she had an iPod playing, and she listened to the faint strains of Ethan’s violin. She had the volume turned down so the seductive melody could be white noise to lure her to sleep, but whenever she closed her eyes she pictured Ethan’s powerful performance on stage. The passion on his handsome face as he played and the fluid grace of his strong fingers were impossible to forget.

  With eyes shut, she thought of Ethan, but with her eyes wide open, another man kept her awake—Gabe Cronan. Two very different men.

  Ethan wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. He was twenty-five, a few years younger than she was and he was physically beautiful, but she felt that the challenges he’d face in his young life had blessed him with an ancient and worldly soul. He had a shy vulnerability that made her want to protect him, and when she imagined being with him in bed, she pictured him as a generous and giving lover.

  It hadn’t been a stretch to hear Olivia had exploited his innocence by sexually experimenting with him. Angel had never been one for playing games. She didn’t have to with Manny. He satisfied her body, her mind, and her heart, but with Ethan she had to admit the thought of making him a fantasy lover had lingered. Angel knew it would be exploitive and would objectify him. She’d never go through with her dark desires, because they were nothing more than fantasies, but she could see how Olivia might’ve given in to her needs with Ethan. His boyish and idyllic beauty, his age, and even his blindness made him vulnerable to women who liked to take charge or had a secret desire to school a young lover.

  Her partner was the complete opposite of someone like Ethan Chandler.

  There was a potency and strength in Gabe, with an underlying element of danger that gave him edge. He was dark and brooding and closed off when he needed space. He had a wicked and devilish glint to his amazing blue eyes. She’d seen his eyes become intimidating weapons on the job, but she could easily imagine those eyes turning into irresistible lures to attract the right woman to his bed after dark.

  He was a guy’s guy and a loner, but if he ever let a woman into his life, Angel knew he’d fall hard and completely like a wolf alpha male that mated for life. With Gabe, there was no middle ground. A woman would have to take the whole package—even his dark side—in order to love him body and soul, because that’s the way he would love her.

  In bed there would be no coy games. Gabe would be the kind of lover who would satisfy a woman to her very toes. Why would any woman in her right mind want him to play another role? She smiled when she thought about tying him down so she could take her time with his body, but with Gabe, she would want him unleashed and free. That made her smile again, but her amusement came and went.

  You’re being stupid, Angel, she chastised. It’s not like you get to order off a Chinese food menu, pick one from column A or B and you get fried rice and an eggroll.

  If she did get to pick between Ethan and Gabe, her partner was the greater risk for her heart. He wasn’t a fling or a fantasy to try and leave behind. Although she had her job to think about if she ever crossed the line with her partner, loving Gabe would be a one-way trip. No retreat, only surrender. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for surrender.

  When her iPod changed tracks and another song started, her cell phone rang and made her heart jump. A call this time of night for a homicide cop was never a good thing, but when she looked at the display screen, she recognized the phone number.

  She answered the call as her face flushed with heat.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice cracked.

  “Angel?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Caller ID told her who was on the other end of the line, but she wanted to hear him say his name.

  “This is Ethan.” His voice was soft and low. When he breathed into the phone, she heard the rustle of his bed sheets. “I couldn’t sleep…and I didn’t know who else to call. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Angel shut her eyes and swallowed, hard. Ethan Chandler was a famous world-renowned violinist. With all the people in his life, she found it sad that he had to reach out to a virtual stranger when he needed to talk.

  Had his dead girlfriend been that person for him? She didn’t feel like questioning Ethan’s motives for calling her at this hour, because she’d spent far too much time gazing into death’s never ending black mirror. She understood what it felt like to be lost and floundering in grief.

  She remembered the suffocating paralysis of grief where days ran into nights in a mindless blur. When she was ready to come up for air, she often talked to anyone who would listen, because she needed to reach out and strangers didn’t judge her inability to move on.

  “No, you didn’t wake me. I couldn’t sleep either.” She pulled her blanket over her breasts and nestled into her pillows.

  “Is that my music?” he asked.

  He had a smile in his voice and the intimacy of that made it feel as if he were lying next to her. She’d left her iPod playing. He must’ve heard it.

  “Yes.”

  Angel knew she should have asked why he’d called her cell this time of night. He was still a suspect in his girlfriend’s murder. She should have insisted he stop reaching out to her like this, but the truth was…she liked it.

  Chapter 14

  Grand Central Police Station

  The next morning

  Cronan had heard from the chief that Charles Davenport wanted face time to hear the latest on his daughter’s murder case, but that wasn’t the only reason he was coming to the city. Olivia’s body had been released for the family to make burial arrangements for their only daughter.

  Angel was on her commute to the station when Davenport showed early. After Cronan got a message that he had a visitor, he left his partner a message on her desk, telling her where they’d be. Olivia’s father paced the waiting area. Dressed in a sport coat, polo shirt, and slacks, he looked more suited to a country club than a police station. Cronan greeted the man and escorted him to a quiet interview room where they could talk.

  “Can I get you coffee?” he asked and waved a hand for Mr. Davenport to sit across from him.

  “No, thank you. I’d rather get this over with.”

  Cronan didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would never be over. He knew that firsthand. The violent death of a loved one was a stigma that never went away.

  “I had to come, to see what progress
you’ve made on your investigation. Are you getting any closer to finding Olivia’s killer?”

  Charles Davenport looked out of place in the homicide interview room. His eyes darted from the observation window to the door. Cronan thought the quiet room would give them privacy for a grieving father to ask hard questions, but simply being at a police station made Davenport look uncomfortable. Cronan couldn’t blame him.

  “We’re working through the evidence and looking into Olivia’s life to give us insight,” he told him what he could, but for an active case, he couldn’t say much.

  Rumors of McFarland’s death being a possible suicide had hit the media. The only reason it got much play is because of where he had died—in Ethan Chandler’s building where reporters were already camped out. Cronan thought that the reason Charles Davenport pushed for an update on Olivia’s case had been due to hearing about McFarland. He expected the man to press him on how the death of Chandler’s neighbor was linked to Olivia’s murder, but when that hadn’t been the man’s first question, Cronan decided to see where the conversation went. With his theories on McFarland still fresh and unsubstantiated, he thought it was a good idea not to share his speculations with Olivia’s father.

  “Have you thought of anything else that would help us?” Cronan asked. “Tell me about your relationship with your daughter.”

  Gabe found it hard to read the man’s eyes. They had a dead quality to them. Maybe that’s how grief manifested in him. Either way, that made it difficult to read between his lines.

  “Olivia and I had been close when she was a girl. We did everything together, but after she moved out, she cut me out of her life.”

  “Why do you think she did that?”