“No, just thinking.” June twelfth was the night Melanie Upton had been assaulted. The same night Lenny was getting his nose bloodied on the other side of the city.
CHAPTER 35
Winter skipped the bypass, heading back into the central part of the city through the neighborhoods. The rain had intensified, as had the humidity, he had to run the air conditioner.
If Gruse had got his nose bloodied in a bar fight, and had been involved in any way with Upton—sexually or not—would he have gone to her place after getting beaten up in a bar? Either to clean up or . . . take his frustrations out on Upton. The timeline might fit; Gruse in the bar earlier in the evening, plenty of time to drive across town to Upton’s.
Winter hadn’t mastered driving and dialing numbers on his cell phone, so he pulled into a Dunkin Donuts parking lot. Winter gave the Dunkin Donuts a long look, a chocolate covered would be good right now, he’d have to remember to get lots of napkins, the topping would melt before he made it back to the car. It would make a mess . . .
A messy car. Gruse’s Cadillac, filled with trash. Gruse must have driven to the bar where he got his nose bleed.
He called Andie, the crime tech.
“I hope you aren’t hounding me for the SAFE kit DNA match,” Andie said the minute she picked up. “You think this is television, we get results back in a day?”
“I wasn’t,” Winter protested. “Really. I have a different question. When you were doing collection in Melanie Upton’s apartment, did you find any blood?”
“A little. Not surprising, there’s usually blood where people live.”
“What’s a little?”
“A few drops on the floor of the bathroom. It could have been there a while. It wasn’t the cleanest place.”
“Could it be from a nose bleed?”
“Sure.”
“Did you bag the trash at Upton’s?”
“Both inside and from a garbage can out back. Nothing in the trash with blood. Not a lot anyway, there might be a trace on a tissue, we didn’t go that deep. Detective Ryder wasn’t so certain there had even been a crime.”
“Okay. Is there any way you can find out if the bathroom blood was Upton’s?”
“We can check the type easily enough, they would have collected that as part of the SAFE kit. I’ll pull it up . . . Upton is O positive, and so was the blood we found. It’s probably hers, but without a DNA match, we can’t be certain. You want me to send that one out too?”
“Go ahead. The Gruse homicide. What was the type of the blood in the Cadillac?”
“I’ll check. I thought these were different cases?”
“Probably. Maybe.”
“Gruse’s blood is A positive.”
Winter thanked Andie and hung up, idling in the parking lot. So no Gruse blood at Upton’s. Unless it had ended up in the dumpster across the street; he doubted Ryder had searched it. Ryder had been assuming that Upton was drunk or high and hadn’t given the assault claim much credence.
So it wasn’t going to be easy. There was still the SAFE kit though; Gruse’s DNA could be a match.
Winter pulled out of the lot. He’d have lunch at The Café, healthier than a donut.
Jake wasn’t at the restaurant, but Tiffany the hostess was, and that’s who Winter had come to see anyway. She led Winter to a booth and sat down across from him as he ordered a burger and fries.
“Jake told me you’d be by,” she said. “About some guy?”
Tiffany’s eyes were an improbably bright shade of green, Winter wondering if she was wearing tinted contacts. Winter showed her the Gruse photo.
“Lenny something,” she said right away. “Creep.”
“You know him?”
“Not really. He’s been in a few times. You want to talk to Melanie, they seemed close.”
“Melanie? Not Melanie Upton, by any chance?”
“The one and only.”
“Close? As in . . .?”
Tiffany started to say something, stopped, then said, “I can’t say for sure. But there was at least one time he was here, in fact in this very booth, and they kind of got into it, you know what I mean? Intense. Not the sort of conversation you’d have with someone you didn’t have—feelings for.”
The dotted line between Gruse and Upton got a little darker in Winter’s mind. Upton had told him she didn’t even know Gruse. “Could he have just been coming on to her, and she was upset?”
Tiffany shrugged. “Look, I don’t want to say anything bad about anyone . . .”
Winter had heard that a million times, a neon flashing sign screaming just the opposite. “But?”
Tiffany dropped her voice. “Melanie wasn’t the nicest person.”
“To customers?”
“I don’t think she thought about the customers one way or another, except for getting tips. It was all about her. She was always stiffing the busboys their cut, hiding her cash tips, stuff like that.”
Winter remembered what the other hostess had said. “Lying to Jake about going off for an audition?”
“I’m sure she did, we weren’t that close.”
“So she’s not working here anymore?”
“She quit a while back, a few months maybe? After the whole press conference publicity stunt.” When Winter looked blank, Tiffany said, “For the Shock and Awe show. Melanie came out of nowhere and kissed Jason Ayers in front of a million people.”
“And this was a publicity stunt?”
“Sure. Another woman had been cast on the show, Melanie dressed up like her, popped up on stage, and kissed Jason to make it look like the show was going to make a cast change.”
“Melanie is going to get a role on Shock and Awe?”
“If she is, it hasn’t happened yet. She might have just got paid to do it to create a little controversy, get some eyes on the show. They probably used her because she had a thing with Jason.”
“You knew about that?”
“Who didn’t? Melanie broadcast it all over the place.”
Winter caught an undercurrent of jealousy in Tiffany’s voice; he wasn’t sure if it was over Upton’s acting career or over Ayers. “Seems like a lot of actresses work here, you too?”
“I get some jobs. I’m more interested in directing some day.”
Winter’s lunch showed up, and he swung the fries around toward Tiffany. “Help yourself.”
Tiffany took a fry and carefully took a bite, then used her finger to make sure she didn’t leave any grease on her lip. “They do make good fries here.”
Winter didn’t want to eat while he was interviewing Tiffany, but he was hungry, and rationalized that she was eating too, munching on his fries. He took a bite, swallowed, and said, “Melanie not very friendly to you either?”
Tiffany gave a diffident shrug. “I didn’t care one way or another.”
“You think she had a role promised to her on the show? Or would she have done that thing at the press conference just for money?”
“Melanie Upton would do anything for Melanie Upton.”
“Even hang out with a guy like Gruse?”
Tiffany eyed the fries, picked up a big one, broke it in two, and plopped it in her mouth. “If he had something she wanted.”
Winter lingered in the booth after he had finished his lunch. The waitress had come by a few times to refill his Coke. The Café could make a burger and fries, but their coffee left a lot to be desired.
Tiffany was back at her hostess station. He’d learned a lot from her. For one thing, Upton had definitely known Gruse. Why had Upton lied about that? All she had to tell Winter was she had seen the guy a few times. The bartender at the Marquee, Kathy at the Irish pub, and now Tiffany had all admitted recognizing Gruse. Why hadn’t Melanie Upton?
Winter watched as Tiffany led a group of four businessmen to a table, walking tall, looking downright elegant. Once she had them seated, the next customers in the restaurant were two younger guys in denim shirts and work pants. With them she smi
led and laughed, a different woman.
She’s an actress, thought Winter. She shifted her entire demeanor depending on the customer. It made him again wonder about Upton, getting into it with Gruse at the restaurant. Had that been an act? Was she playing Gruse the same way she had tried to play Winter, and probably played Ryder?
Of course, Tiffany might not be the best reference for Upton, there was definitely no love lost there. He needed to find out if Gruse had just come on to Upton like he had with other women, and she was blowing him off, or whether there was something else going on.
He left a big tip because the waitress had let him take up the table for so long.
Winter pulled up in front of the house Gruse had lived in. He hadn’t called ahead. Gruse’s mother came to the door, her cheeks a little flushed, her eyes droopy, Winter remembering she liked her wine.
“Is it about Lenny?” she asked.
“I just wanted to fill you in on where we are,” Winter said, which was half of why he was there. She held the door open for him and he caught a whiff of alcohol as he brushed by.
Winter declined her offer of a drink as she sat on the couch and picked up a wine glass. “I want you to know we are still working on getting you closure.” He hated that term, but it was better than saying your son’s case, like it was some book report. And he’d been told that people did, in fact, like to know the how and why, or thought they did. It wouldn’t bring her son back either way. If Winter was in her shoes he’d be hunting down whoever harmed his kid and take care of it himself, but that was him. If some guy had touched Audrey, it would have been Winter cutting up his groin.
“I miss my Lenny so much,” sniffled Gruse. “Why would someone do this to him?”
Another box popped into Winter’s head: revenge. Lenny committing the assault on Upton, and someone making him pay the price. Ayers, perhaps. Or another boyfriend of Upton’s, one Winter didn’t know about yet. Or Upton’s father, was he around?
Winter said, “We’re trying to find that out.” He wanted to ease into the question about Gruse’s relationships with women. “Mrs. Gruse, you said you didn’t know any friends Lenny might have made—”
“We hadn’t been here that long, he was just getting settled.”
“Sure. But I was wondering, did he mention a woman? Maybe a girlfriend, or a woman he was interested in?”
“My Lenny was a good looking boy, I’m sure he was going to have lots of woman friends.”
“Did he mention a name?”
Gruse took a healthy swallow of her red. “Not that I recall. You know boys, it’s not something they talk to their mother about.” She gave Winter a full on look, a little sultry. “You have children?”
Winter shuddered, he was in her boyfriend’s house talking about her dead son and she was trying to find out if he was married. “We have a daughter.” No need to add that he was long since divorced.
“Maybe it’s different with girls,” said Gruse, back at her wine. “But Lenny didn’t tell me anything.”
Winter didn’t bother calling Ryder to fill him in. Ryder wouldn’t think much of the possible tenuous connection between Gruse and Upton. Winter did want to ask Upton about why she had denied knowing Gruse; if Ryder wasn’t willing to, Winter would do it himself.
He didn’t want to fall into the trap of looking for connections between the two cases that didn’t exist. Years ago he had solved two seemingly unconnected assaults by finding a hidden linkage, and soon thereafter, cleared two other unrelated cases that shared a surprising overlap. After that he had made the mistake of looking for possible connections in his next dozen cases, all for naught. He’d learned that everything wasn’t connected, that there could be two murders on the same day in the same neighborhood with the same type of gun, but have nothing to do with each other. That didn’t mean such crimes were random, it just meant they weren’t connected. There was a big difference.
Upton was Ryder’s case, but Winter had been drawn into it. So he’d continue to poke around, though. Gruse’s mother didn’t know anything about her son’s friends, but someone had to. Two bartenders had remembered Gruse, why not a third?
Winter drove to the Hilton.
The Hilton bar was being used for some type of corporate function, a buffet table set up in the corner, a woman in a stark suit standing in front of a screen pointing at a chart. No one was behind the bar, so Winter stuck his head into the back room.
Two women in waitress uniforms, whose faces looked enough alike to be sisters, if sisters could be about the same age and almost a foot different in height, were talking to a gangly red headed guy. The guy said, “Help you?”
“I’m looking for the bartender.”
“That would be me,” said the red head.
“My name is Winter, Marburg police. Can we talk?” The two waitresses looked like they wanted to stay and listen in, and Winter didn’t see why not, so he added, “Actually, you could all help me.” He showed them the photo of Gruse. “Ever see him in here?”
“We mostly do setups for special events,” said the taller waitress. “I don’t remember him, but we aren’t in the room much until everyone leaves.”
“How about at the bar?” Winter asked.
The redhead shrugged. “I dunno. It gets pretty crowded.”
“You get any regulars?”
“A few. Not him.”
“You know Jason Ayers?”
“Sure,” said both of the waitresses at the same time.
“Me too,” said the bartender. “Most of the cast, they’ve been in.”
“They mingle with the locals?”
“Jason does,” said the bartender. “He grew up around here. Not Stevens or the others as much.”
Winter flicked through to the photo of Upton. “Recognize her?”
“She’s been around a lot,” said the shorter waitress.
“At corporate events?”
“No, just, you know, around. I see her coming in the back entrance all the time, we have to park back there. I used to think she worked here.”
“I’ve seen her too,” said the taller woman. “I thought the same thing. I heard she’s friends with Jason.” She used her fingers to make air quotes when she said friends.
“You saw them together?”
“No, not really. Just heard some talk.”
Winter turned to the bartender. “You?”
The red head’s eyes flicked away. “Maybe. We get lots of women customers.”
Winter could understand the bartender not remembering Gruse, but Upton would be hard to miss, especially if she had been around a lot.
“Okay, thanks.” He turned to go, then said, “Hey, on the way in I noticed that the sternos were out in the hot tray.”
“Damn,” said the short waitress. “Thanks. Come on, we’d better get that, they’ll be bitching about cold chicken.”
Winter waited until they had left before he asked the bartender, “What’s your name?”
“Glen.”
“Glen, maybe something you didn’t want to say about that woman in front of your co-workers?”
Glen glanced at the door. “I might have seen her.”
“With Ayers?”
“No. I don’t think they are together, that’s just talk.”
“How do you know?”
Glen’s face flushed, making his freckles glow like a lying beacon. “She’s been at the bar a few times, I would have seen them together.”
“She talk to you?”
“Sure. She’s friendly.”
That wasn’t what Winter had been hearing, but he’d also seen how Upton could turn on the charm. What was it Tiffany had said? When Melanie wanted something. Winter wondered if Glen was slipping Upton free drinks. He knew the bars tracked the liquor, but there were ways around that. “She’s nice to everyone?”
“Melanie’s nice to me.”
“Anyone she’s not especially nice to?”
“Guys can get a little pushy with a goo
d looking woman, you know what I mean? I see it all the time at the bar. Women have to deal with that.”
“Anyone in particular hassling Melanie?”
Glen nodded toward the tablet. “The guy you showed us the picture of. He was here one night, bothering her.”
“Trying to pick her up?”
“Not really. He was babbling about how she owed him something.”
“Like money?”
“Or a favor. He wasn’t making sense. I offered to throw him out, but Melanie was cool, she knew how to deal with him. He left pretty angry though. He was so pissed he threw a dish of peanuts, smashed it to bits.”
“Huh.” What could Gruse think that Upton might owe him? Money for a smoking gun photo of Jason Ayers, maybe? Or was it something personal, enough to get him all worked up? “You think this guy might have had some interest in Melanie?”
Glen stared at Upton’s photo on the tablet. “Who wouldn’t?”
CHAPTER 36
Winter poked his head over Ryder’s cubicle wall, betting himself that Ryder would be writing up his notes. He won. “You planning on writing a book?”
“You never know,” said Ryder. “Or a screenplay. This Upton case has movie written all over it.”
“Then you’re going to love this.” Winter gave Ryder an update on what he had discovered about both Gruse and Upton the night before at the Hilton. “She seems to have known him.”
“You still on that? You’re running around finding facts to support your theory. Have you asked your witnesses how many other guys were hounding Upton?”
“That’s a good point,” Winter conceded. “But I’m more interested in why she told me she didn’t recognize Gruse.”
“You think she remembers all the guys who hit on her?”
“Probably not. But I have two stories about her in a heated conversation with Gruse. Does that sound like just a guy hitting on her?”
“These witnesses any good?”
Winter shrugged. “Hit or miss. One might have been a little jealous, the other a little into her.”
Random Revenge Page 39