by Harry Dolan
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“You thought there might be a note concealed in the frame?”
“I told you it was irrational.”
“Did you find a note?”
“All I found was this sliver.”
“You should take it out.”
“There aren’t any tweezers in this house.”
Wordlessly, Elizabeth dug through her bag for a pair of tweezers. She crossed to where Loogan was sitting and bent over his open palm. In the lamplight she worried at the sliver with her thumbnail. After a moment she was able to get a grip on it with the tweezers and draw it out. Loogan rubbed his palm. “Thank you.”
She returned to the sofa and dropped the tweezers in her bag. A scent lingered in her memory, the scent of soap and fresh-scrubbed skin.
“You visited Laura Kristoll last night,” she said. “How long were you with her?”
“An hour, maybe ninety minutes,” he said.
“What did you talk about?”
“We talked very little. She cried a good deal.”
“She must have told you that her husband didn’t commit suicide. He was killed.”
“Yes.”
“Yet this morning you were looking for a note from him.”
“I’m not saying it makes sense.”
Elizabeth looked again at the photograph above the fireplace. “When did he give you that?”
“More than a week ago now.”
“What was the occasion?”
“There wasn’t an occasion. It was a token, I guess you’d say. Of friendship.”
“You were friends.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you slept with his wife.”
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Loogan smiled slowly. “You’re very direct.”
“Some people say I’m artful. Laura was here on Friday. The two of you were together.”
“Yes,” said Loogan. “She came here around five-thirty. Left around twenty after seven.”
“Tom Kristoll died around twenty after seven,” Elizabeth said softly. “So you couldn’t have pushed him out his office window.”
“As it happens, I didn’t.”
“I know. I wasn’t sure yesterday. I had only Laura’s word then. But we were able to listen to Tom’s voice mail. You called him Friday evening from your home phone. You left him a message at seven twenty-one.”
Loogan frowned. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“I believe you. A less innocent man might’ve kept a tighter grip on his alibi.” Elizabeth fanned the pages of her notebook with her thumb. “In your message to Tom, you said you were on your way. You were supposed to meet him?”
“He had invited me to stop by the office for a drink. I was supposed to meet him at seven.”
“But you were here at seven, with Laura. Did you know she was going to be here?”
“No. She just stopped by.”
“And you lost track of time.”
“I fell asleep.”
“Is that right?”
“We talked, and then we sat for a while on the sofa, and I fell asleep.”
“And when you woke up?”
“Laura was leaving. She had her coat on. I intended to drive to Tom’s office, but when I got outside I found my car had been vandalized. Two of the tires were slashed and the driver’s door was keyed—scratched with a key.”
“I know what ‘keyed’ means, Mr. Loogan,” said Elizabeth. “When you saw the damage to your car, who did you think had done it?”
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“Neighborhood kids, I imagine. Who else?”
“Keying is what jilted girlfriends do to their boyfriends’ cars,” Elizabeth said. “You had just broken off your affair with Laura. Did you wonder if she was the one who vandalized your car?”
“I thought about it, for all of ten seconds.”
“Is it so implausible? She had her coat on when you woke up. She could have gone out and come back in.”
“If she was eighteen, I might believe it,” Loogan said. “If she was more flighty, less sophisticated. Do you really think she might have done it?”
“No, but I’m not sure it was neighborhood kids either.” Elizabeth turned to a blank page and made a note. “So, what did you do? Your car was undrivable.”
“I walked.”
“You were already late. It was a cold night. For all you knew, Tom had gone home. Why not call it off ?”
“It was only twelve blocks. When I got to Main Street, I could see something was happening. It must have been nearly eight o’clock by then. There were police cars, barricades. I got as close as I could. The body was covered with a blanket, but I think I knew right away. I saw the open window on the sixth floor, and then I was sure.”
Loogan’s eyes were downcast. “I borrowed someone’s cell phone and tried to call Laura, but got no answer. I found a cab to drive me to their house. But Laura had been notified by then. She’d gone in to identify the body.”
“So you didn’t see her again that night?”
“No.”
“And when you saw her last night and she told you her husband’s death wasn’t a suicide, what was your reaction?”
“I wasn’t surprised,” Loogan said. “I never thought Tom was suicidal.”
“Do you think he was happy?”
“I think he was content. He had a good life. He had work he enjoyed.”
“And his marriage—was he content with that?”
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“He never gave me reason to think otherwise.”
“But you wouldn’t have called him happy.”
Loogan hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “Tom had regrets. He told me once that no one sets out to be an editor. That’s what he ended up as, but it’s not what he wanted to be, when he was young. He wanted to be a writer.”
Loogan fell silent and Elizabeth put her notebook away. She got up and went to the window and looked out at the elm tree and the street. When she turned, he was standing by the fireplace watching her.
“Who do you think killed him?” he said.
“I’m supposed to ask you that,” she said.
Loogan ran his palm over the stones of the fireplace. “It must have been someone he knew. Someone he trusted.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was struck on the back of the head. He wasn’t on guard. He didn’t feel threatened.”
“Go on,” Elizabeth said.
“I’m just speculating.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“It was someone strong enough to wrestle a body through a window. Someone confident, someone daring. Whoever he was, he couldn’t be sure there would be no witnesses—someone could have looked up from the street at just the right time. But that didn’t stop him.”
“Go on.”
“It was someone who had been in the office before, who knew the building,” Loogan said. “If there’s a body on the sidewalk, you’re not going to want to go out the front door. He would have used the service entrance in the back.”
“You’ve got his escape route worked out. You’ve given this some thought.”
“If he knew Tom and he knew the building, he was probably someone with ties to Gray Streets. ”
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“We’ve got a list of people associated with Gray Streets, ” Elizabeth said.
“Sandy Vogel gave it to me this morning. She had it ready before I requested it. She said you asked her to prepare it.”
“It should include the writers,” Loogan said. “Tom sometimes published stories by people in prison. People in prison get out of prison. That’s worth looking into, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Elizabeth.
“I want him caught,” Loogan said quietly. “I
should have been there, at the offi ce, at seven. I fell asleep. If I had done what I said I would do, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Loogan bowed his head and his eyes were lost in shadows. “If this were a story in Gray Streets, I’d catch the killer myself. It would be my responsibility.”
“This isn’t a story in Gray Streets, Mr. Loogan.”
“It would be my responsibility. Tom was my friend. I should have been there.”
On Monday morning Elizabeth spoke with Carter Shan. In the squad room of the Investigations Division, she filled him in on her conversations with Laura Kristoll and David Loogan.
“I’d like it better if they denied the affair,” Shan said.
“They’re wily,” said Elizabeth.
“If they denied the affair, we’d have something to work on. We could show their pictures to waiters and hotel clerks.”
“I know how you love showing pictures to hotel clerks.”
“There’s nothing easier than proving that a man and a woman are having an affair. It’s wrong of them to come out and admit it.”
“We could bring them in,” Elizabeth said. “Put them in a windowless room. Get them to change their story.”
“They still could have done it,” Shan said. “If they wanted Kristoll out of the way, they could have hired someone to ease him out a window.”
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“I’d believe it, if it wasn’t for the timing. If a woman hires someone to kill her husband, she knows she’ll be a suspect. She needs an alibi. Laura Kristoll managed to be alone with her lover when her husband was killed—not the alibi I would have chosen.”
“Suppose Loogan hired the killer,” Shan said, “and Laura knew nothing about it.”
“It makes even less sense that way,” said Elizabeth. “If you’ve hired someone to kill your friend, you don’t call your friend and tell him you’re on your way over. If you want to establish an alibi, you call anyone but the man you’re having killed.”
Shan thought it over. “Maybe David Loogan is a criminal genius.”
“I don’t think he’s a criminal genius.”
“He’s got you convinced he’s innocent.”
“I never said he was innocent. I think he knows more than he’s saying.”
“Let’s bring him in. Put him in that windowless room.”
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “There’s something I want to look into fi rst. A crime that could be linked to Tom Kristoll’s murder.”
“What crime?”
“A bit of vandalism.”
Alice Marrowicz had an office in a storeroom on the second floor. Her hair was mousy and she wore blue eye shadow and dressed like a spinster in thick sweaters and flowered frocks. Yet Elizabeth knew for certain that she was twenty-eight years old. The department had hired her as a tactical crime analyst, which meant she kept a database of information on every crime committed in the city of Ann Arbor.
Her workspace consisted of a laptop computer and a table and chair and very little else. She had the contents of a case file spread out on the table and was tapping on her keyboard when Elizabeth knocked on her open door.
“Hello, Alice.”
“Hello,” the woman said. She finished typing and spun her chair around. b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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“I wonder if you could do me a favor,” Elizabeth said.
“You’re working on the Kristoll murder.”
“Right.”
“There are limits to what I can do with just a database.”
“I know.”
“I’ve already had a go at the Kristoll murder,” Alice said. She spoke se dately, but there was a glint of humor in her eyes. “I typed in ‘publishers pushed from sixth-floor windows.’ Nothing came back.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course, the data I use only comes from the local area. There could be publishers being pushed from windows all the time in other cities.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Elizabeth said. “But I’m interested in something more prosaic right now. Vandalism, particularly against cars. Slashed tires, scratched finish. Keying.”
“I can give you that,” Alice said. “No sweat.”
Elizabeth handed her a sheaf of papers. “Whatever you come up with, I need it cross-checked against this list. These are people associated with Kristoll’s magazine, Gray Streets. They could be victims of vandalism, or perpetrators.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “If they’re either one, they’ll be in the database.”
“Can you get me something by this afternoon?”
“Give me an hour.”
Chapter 10
Valerie Calnero wore eyeglasses with black plastic frames. They were an ineffective disguise, a device to make a beautiful girl seem plain.
The woman had the figure of a starlet, the legs of a showgirl. She had a smooth high forehead and long auburn tresses. She had a nose that was slightly too prominent—a nose that a plastic surgeon might have been tempted to fix, though he would regret it afterward. Her skin was pale and clear, her lips generous.
She met Elizabeth and Carter Shan at her door, led them into a modest apartment. She wore a powder blue skirt and a simple white blouse.
“I’ve seen you before,” she said to Elizabeth. “On Saturday at the Kristoll house. You came to talk to Laura.” She sat on an overstuffed sofa and offered Elizabeth a chair. Shan took up a position on one of the sofa’s arms.
“You were alone then,” Valerie Calnero said. “Now there are two of you, and you want to talk about my car. Is this a trick?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Elizabeth.
“Tom Kristoll is dead. But you’re not here about that. You’re here because, months ago, somebody scratched the paint on my car. So I have to wonder: Is it a trick? You do that sometimes, don’t you? You tell someone you want to talk about one thing, when you really want to question them about something else.”
Shan put on a disarming smile. “We’re not trying to trick you. I might be tempted, but Detective Waishkey would never stoop to something so low.”
“You’re the bad cop, then, and she’s the good cop?”
He laughed easily. “You’ve got us figured out.”
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“Let’s go over a few things, if we could,” Elizabeth said. “You’re a friend of the Kristoll family.”
“I’m a student of Laura’s,” said Valerie. “She’s my adviser. But I’d like to think I’m a friend too.”
“And you were an intern at Gray Streets. ”
“I was, last spring.”
“And last spring someone vandalized your car.”
“They scratched a word on the hood. ‘Bitch,’ I think it was.”
“At the time, did you have any idea who might have done it?”
“I assume you’ve read the report. The offi cer I talked to asked me that question. I told him no.” The woman’s posture was defensive. She sat with her shoulders hunched, knees tight together, hands in her lap.
“Here’s what we’re thinking, Valerie,” Elizabeth said. “Suppose you never wanted to file a report. You just wanted to get your car repainted. But the insurance company wouldn’t pay without a police report. So you went along. When the officer asked who might’ve done it, maybe you weren’t sure, but you had your suspicions. You didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. So you said you didn’t know.”
Valerie’s fingers fussed at the hem of her skirt. “If that’s the way it went, why would I want to say anything now?”
“We need to know,” Elizabeth said.
“I see. So this does have something to do with Tom’s murder. But if I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble then, the same would be true now.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Shan. “If you tell us who it was, we’re just going to talk to him. We’re not going to haul him in for
murdering Tom Kristoll.”
Valerie laid open her palms. “The thing is, I was never sure. He might not have done it.”
“Who was he?”
“Someone I dated back then. Well, it was never really dating. We had lunch, we went to movies. He wanted it to be more than that. When I told him I wasn’t interested, he reacted badly. He never got angry—he was just 7
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sort of brooding. It was a few days later that the thing happened with my car.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know that it was him,” Valerie said. “Afterward, I convinced myself it wasn’t. He’s been all right since then.” She took off the blackframed glasses. “If I tell you, are you going to let him know I told you?”
“Not unless we have to,” Shan said.
“That’s not what I wanted to hear. You ought to lie and tell me he’ll never know.”
“We need his name.”
“It’s Adrian. Adrian Tully.”
Adrian Tully lived in a dumpy apartment. The furniture was secondhand, the bookshelves made of cinder blocks and wooden planks. Books overfl owed the shelves and were piled on chairs and sofa cushions. Tully himself was neat enough. He had a shaved head and a close-trimmed mustache and goatee. His polo shirt and slacks were unwrinkled. He sat Elizabeth and Shan down at his kitchen table.
“I’m afraid I never had much to do with Mr. Kristoll,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be any help to you.”
“That’s all right,” said Elizabeth. “We have to talk to everyone who worked at Gray Streets. I’m sure you understand.”
“I’ve wondered how the investigation’s going,” Tully said. “Do you have any leads? I guess I shouldn’t ask. You can’t really tell me, can you?”
“Not really.”
“It’s always fascinated me—how someone goes about solving a crime. I mean, do you go strictly by the evidence? Do you have hunches?”
“I have hunches,” Shan said. “Detective Waishkey has theories. Hypotheses.”
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“I’ve been reading a book that says you can solve anything, answer any question, if you just ask enough people,” he said. “The idea is that we know things collectively that none of us know individually. It’s not as strange as it sounds. Researchers have done experiments. Take a jar of jelly beans and have random people guess how many beans are in the jar. If you take their answers and average them, you’ll get a number that’s very close to the actual number, probably closer than any one person’s guess.”