by Blake Banner
He nodded. “I’ll let you know in good time.”
He made off toward the room and I turned to Joe. “There was water on the floor, but most of it had been mopped up with a towel. Maybe it spilled out of the bath when the body was put in, but that’s unlikely. Moving a dead body is not easy.”
He nodded and started to walk toward the room. We fell into step with him. “Besides, you put the body in first and then fill the bath.”
Dehan nodded. “Right, and what’s the point of making it look like a drowning? So I’m thinking the splashes were made during the drowning process. Maybe he sat on him, or knelt on him. The towel that was used to mop up afterwards is in the dirty linen basket.”
We followed him into the room. The gurney was outside the bathroom door. Frank looked out.
“Joe, you boys want to inspect the floor before I take the body out? There’s going to be a lot of water…”
We sat on the bed waiting while Joe’s team inspected the floor. Eventually, they brought out the dirty linen basket sealed in a large plastic bag, with the wet towel sealed in another, and carried them out to the van. A moment later, we heard, “On three… one, two, three!”
There was a loud sloshing and the sound of men heaving. Then Frank’s voice calling, “Stone, Dehan!”
His assistants stepped out and made room for us. Ned was lying on the gurney, with copious amounts of water draining out of his clothes onto the gurney and then onto the floor. Frank was making a cursory initial inspection of the body.
“There are no obvious puncture wounds, but I can’t be conclusive about that until I get him back to the lab. There is water in his mouth and in his trachea, but that could have seeped in during the time he was submerged. Until I can look at his lungs, I cannot be sure he was drowned. Time of death I would put at ten minutes past two PM, give or take a couple of minutes.”
Dehan raised her eyebrows and looked at him as though he’d just told her his best friend was a six foot pink elephant called Toto. “Excuse me?”
He held up the dead man’s left hand. The wrist was grotesquely inflamed around a watch with an expandable strap. “Water resistant but not water proof. It’s analog. Stopped when the water got to the battery. Fifteen minutes past two. So I’d put time of death at shortly after two PM.”
I pulled an evidence bag from my pocket. “I’ll take that with me.”
With some difficulty, he maneuvered the watch over the swollen hand and dropped it in the bag.
I pointed at Ned’s jeans. “Has he got his cell in his back pocket?”
“I haven’t checked.” Between them, they rolled him on his side and Frank felt in his back pockets. “Yeah. Here. It’s water logged, but Joe might be able to do something with it.”
Dehan pulled out another evidence bag and Frank dropped it in.
“Anything else?”
I shook my head. “That about wraps it up.”
“Good. Then let me do my job and I’ll get the preliminaries to you as soon as possible.”
“Thanks, Frank.”
We stepped out into the parking lot. Dehan crossed to the Jag and sat on the hood. I took Ned’s cell over to Joe, who was leaning against his van, waiting for Frank to vacate the premises. I gave him the phone.
“There is one thing I am interested in above all others on this phone.” I told him what it was.
He nodded. “OK, you got it. Depends how fast we can dry it out, but it shouldn’t take long. I’ll let you know. Oh.” He snapped his fingers. “We found nothing on the envelope, nothing on the letter paper, but,” he gave a small laugh, “you were right, plenty of partials on the newspaper itself. Criminal masterminds just don’t think.”
I smiled. “Nothing on IAFIS, but…”
“No match IAFIS. Not in the system. But like you thought, a score.”
“Right. Listen, I need you to run a DNA profile on Ned, and make the comparison, will you?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Frank came out with the body and Joe and his team went in. A cool breeze found its way into the courtyard and made me shudder. I noticed the shadows were stretching and the sunlight had turned a burnished copper color.
I turned and made my way back to Dehan. She watched me approach with her arms crossed.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“About time of death.”
I shrugged. “It was a hunch. Come on, we need to go and give the bad news to Chevronne, and Ned’s wife.”
I tossed her the keys and climbed in the passenger seat.
We drove slowly and in silence. I had no doubts anymore about what had happened. I just needed to prove it, and that was not going to be easy. It was going to require some very delicate timing.
We retraced our steps, taking the quieter Boston Post Road. At one point, Dehan spoke suddenly and said, “The 9mm.”
I looked at her a moment and nodded. “Yeah.”
A little later, she sighed as we joined the Bruckner Expressway. Soon after that, we came off at exit fifty-three and turned in to Chatterton Avenue. We parked outside Ned’s house, climbed out and crossed his long garden to climb the three steps to his front door. We rang and it was eventually opened by a young woman in her late twenties. She was strawberry blond and blue-eyed, with rosy cheeks and a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
I sensed rather than saw Dehan’s surprise. I said, “Are you Ned Brown’s wife?”
“Yes, Jane. Who are you?”
I showed her my badge. “Detective John Stone, this is Detective Carmen Dehan. May we come in?”
Her brow contracted. “Of course. Have you found Ned?”
We stepped into a broad hallway with a passage on the right that led to a kitchen at the back of the house. A distorted pattern of colored light lay on the floor and the wall, cast by the dying rays of the sun bleeding through a stained glass window. A movement down the corridor made me look and I saw Chevronne approaching from the kitchen.
“Have you found Ned? Is he all right? Where is he?”
I saw the living room door ajar and pointed to it. “Can we go and sit down?”
Jane nodded and led the way. Chevronne grabbed my arm in two hands like talons, staring up into my face. “Tell me, please tell me! I’m his mother! Please tell me he’s all right!”
I took hold of her and guided her through to a spacious, dark living room. A large bow window overlooked the front yard. A dark green sofa and dark green armchairs added to the somewhat gloomy feel of the room. I sat Chevronne on the sofa and Jane sat beside her. They reached for each other’s hands as they watched me sit. Dehan stood by the fireplace.
“Jane, Chevronne, Ned is dead. I am so sorry to have to give you this news.”
Chevronne’s face seemed to melt, like hot wax, into a silent scream. Both of Jane’s hands went to her mouth. Her eyes seemed to glaze. She shook her head, denying what she was hearing. Chevronne made a sudden, shocking, visceral noise, as though something were being torn from her. Dehan sat next to her and put her arms around her. Jane’s jaw trembled, tears spilling from her eyes.
“What am I going to do?” she asked, simply. “What am I going to do without him?” Her cheeks were shiny and wet. I handed her a handkerchief. She took it and after a moment she said, “How?”
I avoided her eyes a moment, then met her frank, blue stare. “He was murdered.”
She blinked and her body rocked, as though she’d been hit. “Murdered? By who? Why? I don’t understand. Why is this happening? Are you sure it’s him? It’s not a mistake?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s not a mistake. I’m so sorry, Jane.”
Chevronne pulled away from Dehan and pointed at me. Her face was ugly, like a clenched fist grasping on a thorn. Her voice was shrill. “I showed you the note! I showed you the note! You never did nothing! White people always pullin’ together against the black man!”
“When did you get that note?”
; Jane said, “This morning, about seven.”
“When did you tell Chevronne?”
“Immediately.” She turned to look at her mother-in-law. “I phoned straight away, to ask if she’d had word from Ned. We were so worried. And I told her about the note…”
I turned to Chevronne, who had squeezed her eyes tight and collapsed against Dehan again.
“Why didn’t you tell me then, Chevronne? Why didn’t you call me?”
She screamed, hysterical, “How do I know you ain’t the one who killed him? White pigs always conspirin’ against black men! How do I know you didn’t kill him?”
Jane stared at her mother-in-law, shaking her head. “Momma, stop it, please! Please stop…”
Dehan put her arm around her and she collapsed into her lap, sobbing convulsively.
I turned to Jane. “Is there anyone we can call? Somebody who can be with you? Chevronne is going to need a sedative. You want us to call your family doctor?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “I’ll call.”
“Jane, I know how hard this is, but I need you to hold it together a little longer and answer me just one more question.”
Her pupils were dilating and she had gone very pale. I pulled Ned’s watch from my pocket and showed it to her. Dehan was frowning at me. I said, “Do you recognize this watch?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I need you to be absolutely sure about that, Jane. Do you want to have a closer look?”
“No. It’s not his. Ned never uses—used—a watch. He said they got too dirty at work.”
“OK, thank you, Jane. You’ve been very helpful. Now, give me your family doctor’s number and I’m going to call him. And a family friend.”
After some talk, I called her doctor and she said she’d be right over. Meanwhile, Dehan went next door and asked Mrs. Santos to come and sit with Jane and Chevronne while Jane’s sister arrived.
Finally, after half an hour, we were able to leave the house and make our way back to the car. Dehan threw me the keys. I opened up, climbed in and she got in beside me.
“OK,” she said. “I think I am beginning to see now.”
“Yeah?” I fired up the big old growler. “What?”
“The 9mm… But I still don’t see who.”
I paused, hesitated and turned to her. “It can only be one person, Dehan.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t get it.” She growled and rubbed her face. “I’m tired. Where are we going now?”
“To visit Annunziata Chester.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “What for?”
“To talk about family loyalty, what else?”
TWENTY
But Annunziata was not at her Riverside Drive apartment. The doorman told us that her brother Justinian had sent a car for her, and he understood she had gone to stay with him for a few days at his Bayside residence. A little persuasive leaning elicited the address from him and, as late afternoon started fading towards evening, we headed east, toward Queens.
In fact, according to the GPS on Dehan’s phone, it was a half hour drive if we went north back to the Bronx and followed the I-95 to drop into Queens over the Throgs Neck Bridge. I told her it made no sense to go backwards in order to go forward, but she stared at me and I drove north to go south.
Twenty minutes later, dusk slipped into evening as we sped high above the East River, and by the time we’d made landfall and turned onto 33rd Avenue, the sky had turned dark and the lights of elegant suburbia were winking on beyond lawns, behind drapes, and in some cases beyond hedges and walled gardens, while 19th century iron street lamps cast mottled shadows across the sidewalks and the blacktop from behind plane trees and chestnuts.
Justinian Chester’s house was both large and grotesque. A double ended drive fronted the house like a closed bracket. From that drive, and the lawn that had been set between the entrance and the exit, four powerful lamps floodlit the façade with warm light.
Seven semicircular, marble steps rose, like the tiers on a wedding cake, to a set of vast, iron and glass doors that appeared to have been borrowed from the set of The Matrix. Above this flight of steps and its vast doors, there was a white, tubular balcony oddly reminiscent of the Titanic, and beyond that rose a Byzantine dome complete with oxblood tiles.
On either side of that strangely unsettling combination of styles stood two wings that did not echo or complement each other in any way, except that the windows on the lower floor were shaded by eaves which were reminiscent of Japanese pagodas. The house was hideous, and if the architect was dead, I felt quite sure he was in hell.
We parked, climbed the seven steps and rang the bell. I saw the drape flick over on my right and a moment later, there were raised voices echoing in the hall. Then the door was wrenched open by Maximilian, who stood glaring at us with a face of outrage.
I smiled at him. “Good evening, Dr. Chester. We are here to see Annunziata.”
His face flushed a deep red and he roared, “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
I wasn’t sure what to answer. Dehan frowned. “Um… we’re here to see Annunziata?”
“You can’t just show up, take people off the street, hold them for questioning…! I’ll sue the city! You think I won’t? I’ll have words with the mayor!”
“Dr. Chester…” I smiled. “Dr. Chester…?”
“What?”
“We need to see Annunziata. Now, you can let us in and we talk to her quietly inside, or I can come back with a SWAT team and a battering ram, and a few news anchors. I suggest you make the smart choice.”
“This is blackmail!”
Dehan pulled her cell from her pocket. “I’ll call for back up.”
“Wait!” His body seemed to quiver for a moment. Then he took a step back and barked, “God dammit!”
The entrance hall was like a small, Greek cathedral. It had a high, domed ceiling and two white marble staircases that climbed, from either side of the hall, to a galleried landing above. The floor was white marble and at the center, there was a fountain displaying a cherub with a serious bladder problem.
Over on the right, a set of tall, white doors with shiny brass plates stood open, and leaning against the frame in a pose that Lauren Bacall would have done justice to, was Justinian.
I nodded to him. “Dr. Chester.”
“I knew you’d come,” he said. “Sooner or later.”
“Oh, do shut up, Justin! You and your damned sister! You’re both out of your minds!”
I raised my eyebrows at Dehan. “Sounds like we made it just in time.” To Maximilian, I said, “Where is she?”
He jerked his head toward the open doors. “In the drawing room.”
As we stepped in, Justinian narrowed his eyes at his brother. “How you could! To say such a thing, at this time! Sometimes I think you have no soul, Max!”
“Shut up!”
The room was grotesque in a way that defied description. It was as though he had selected the worst of three centuries of excess and brought them all together in one fantastic orgy of tastelessness. The floor was strewn with lion skins, tiger skins and zebra skins. The chairs and sofas were white Rococo with gilt highlights. There was a huge, white marble fireplace and the drapes had drapes with frills that had frills, and were tied back with tasseled gold ropes.
On one of those white sofas flanking the fireplace was Annunziata. She was encased in turquoise Chinese silk and wore a diamond choker around her throat. Her black hair was, with exquisite recklessness, high on her head. She watched us with sultry eyes and sucked on a Balkan Sobranie.
“Hello, Anne.”
“Shouldn’t you be talking to my attorney?”
I crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs beside the sofa, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, staring hard into her face. “Don’t you think we ought to take this one step at a time, Anne? Or would you rather dive right in the deep end?”
“What do yo
u mean?”
I was aware of Dehan taking a chair on my right, and Max and Justin standing behind her, watching Annunziata, frowning.
“Ned Brown, your mixed race nephew…” I turned and examined Max and Justin’s faces. They were frowning, but there was no surprise there. I turned back to Annunziata. “He’s dead.”
Her face drained of blood. When she sucked on the cigarette, her hand was shaking. “When?”
“When what?”
“When was he… When did he…” She tapped ash and winced. “What happened?”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you, Anne. What happened?”
“How would I know?”
Max erupted, “I’m calling Paul!”
I sat back and spoke loudly, still keeping my eyes on Annunziata. “That’s probably a good idea, Max. But you might want to ask your brother first, how he feels about having his driveway full of patrol cars, and the media watching his sister being taken out of here in cuffs.”
He took a couple of steps toward me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You want to tell him, Anne?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about either. I think you’re insane.”
“Your nephew…” I pointed at her and then at Max and Justin. “Your nephew, Ned Brown, was murdered.”
Annunziata said again, “When?”
“Two PM.”
She burst out laughing, her cheeks flushed with relief. “Well, honestly, Detective Stone, I don’t know why you’re talking to me! I was with you at two PM! You and your…” She gestured at Dehan with her open palm. “…your assistant!”
I gave a laugh that was both short and humorless. “Of course, we arranged to meet at two. Well, you arranged to meet at two. Was that why you chose that time, because you knew you were going to kill Ned?”
“Now hang on!” Max was roaring again. “You had better have facts to back that up, Detective! Or I swear I’ll have your job!”
I snorted and pulled Ned’s watch from my pocket. “Facts like this watch, worn by the deceased, showing the time the water reached the battery as two fifteen, and on this helpful dial here, fourteen hundred hours and fifteen minutes.”