by R. L. Akers
"You'll keep me posted about Blake and Weiss, of course."
That sounded an awful lot like an order, but Gray let it pass. "I'll try to touch base with you when we know more, yes."
DeLancy grunted, and Gray left.
He was halfway to the security office to interview Lloyd and Boyd again — and get this other guy Chaudhri's contact information, since presumably he worked a different schedule — when his phone rang.
It was Mack. "Get down here, to the parking garage," the other detective said, sounding grim but satisfied. "You'll never guess what we found in Blake's trunk."
Tuesday, August 11th
New York City
With a raucous scraping sound, Gray pulled his chair up to the table in one of the precinct's interrogation rooms. Mack sat to his right, with Charles Blake — and Charles Blake's lawyer — across from them.
"Good morning," Gray said politely, his eyes measuring the man before him.
The NYPD's main suspect in the disappearance of Edgar Weiss — what was definitely looking to be the murder of Edgar Weiss — remained every bit as disheveled as he'd been yesterday, having now spent a night in lockup. On the plus side, he had sobered up and was much more subdued than at their last encounter. As Gray watched, the beleaguered man took a sip of strong black coffee from the white Styrofoam cup placed before him.
"So, Mr. Blake," Mack led off. "Care to tell us what transpired on Sunday afternoon at the offices of Advanced Technology Consultants?" He glanced over some notes on the legal pad before him. "I understand that your flight landed at LaGuardia around 11:00, and taxi records show you headed straight to the office, arriving at ten 'til noon."
Blake nodded slowly. "My car was parked there."
"But you didn't go straight to the parking garage when you arrived."
"No," the suspect shook his head. "I had to get my car keys from my desk."
"And?"
"And he was there. Ed Weiss." Even exhausted, hung over, Blake had the energy to speak that name with obvious hatred. "He was sitting in my chair. At my desk."
Mack nodded encouragingly.
"I demanded to know what he was doing in my office. He told me it was his office now. That Arnie had given him my job, that I'd be working for him from now on."
"Go on."
Blake glared at Mack, and his voice began rising. "So I told him he could—"
The lawyer raised a hand, interrupting smoothly. "My client exchanged heated words with Mr. Weiss," he summarized mildly.
"And then?" Mack pressed.
"And then my client left," the lawyer concluded.
Ignoring the attorney and continuing to address Blake directly, Mack asked, "Did you take anything with you when you left?"
Blake looked confused. He started to say something, then turned and began whispering furiously with his lawyer.
"My client..." the lawyer said slowly, speaking haltingly as he listened, "packed several boxes of his possessions..." More whispering. "Books, sculptures... the contents of his liquor cabinet..." More furious whispering, until the lawyer finally began shushing the suspect. "He packed his belongings, retrieved a dolly from the supply room, and took everything down to his car in the parking garage. Then he drove home." The lawyer raised an eyebrow. "I assume you found the boxes when you searched his car? He hasn't had the opportunity to unload them yet."
Gray spoke up. "We did find the boxes in his trunk, and they were full of his possessions."
"Then you know how unlikely it is my client murdered Mr. Weiss in the office that day. Packing up his belongings is hardly the act of a murderer fleeing a crime scene." The lawyer offered a small smile that somehow conveyed condescension.
Gray hesitated a moment longer, then forged ahead. "We also found that Mr. Blake's possessions — carefully packed in those boxes in the trunk of his car — were soaked in places with dry AB-negative blood, which we believe belongs to Ed Weiss."
Blake's eyes widened, and he paled visibly. Even the lawyer looked surprised.
Gray continued. "That's the same blood we found seven liters of, splattered all over the floor of your old office."
"I didn't have anything to do with that!" the suspect blurted. "I didn't murder Ed Weiss! I didn't even know he was dead until this morning!"
The detectives traded a look. Technically, even they didn't know if the man was dead. The lawyer saw them glance at each other and recovered quickly. "What my client means to say is that he didn't realize Mr. Weiss was missing until he and I spoke this morning. The only reason my client believes Weiss is dead is that you clearly think he is."
"Look," Gray said slowly, "given the quantity of blood and other factors, including the length of time he's been missing, it seems likely Mr. Weiss is dead, though we admit the possibility that he's not. However, there's little doubt regarding Mr. Blake's involvement."
"That's right," Mack interjected. "Your fingerprints were all over those boxes—"
"Of course they were!" the ATC exec yelled. "I already said I'd carried them down. Obviously someone is setting me up, they—"
"Mr. Blake, some of those fingerprints were in the blood itself," Gray said quietly. "You had Weiss's blood on your hands when you carried those boxes down to your car."
The man just stared. "That's... not possible."
The lawyer suddenly seemed very unsure of himself. Had he truly thought he was defending an innocent man?
"No wait!" Blake blurted. "I remember now! Yeah, there was some gunk on those boxes. I didn't think anything of it at the time — I was so pissed at Weiss, I didn't care, but yeah. I wiped it off on my pants. I didn't know it was blood."
Mack gave him a look that was equal parts skepticism and pity.
"I swear!" Blake insisted. "It was — It wasn't even wet. Just kinda sticky, you know? I wiped it off on my pants — I didn't know it was blood!"
"Mr. Blake..."
Blake's eyes widened. "It's Weiss! He's setting me up! He's the one who gave me the boxes!" He shook his head. "I mean, he had them sitting out waiting when I got there."
Mack cleared his throat. "In addition to blood," he said, not acknowledging the suspect's desperate explanation, "we also found trace amounts of textile dye splattered on those same boxes. So. Let me tell you what I think actually happened: You lost your temper and killed Ed Weiss." He shrugged. "It was probably even an accident, but you decided to cover it up. You'd seen this hellhound movie recently — who hasn't?—so you decided to make it look like the hellhound drained Ed of his blood and dragged him to hell."
Blake gave a wordless cry of fury and despair.
"A hellhound?" the lawyer asked. "Really? That's ridiculous."
"I agree," Mack said, still looking at Blake. "But you didn't exactly plan ahead on this, so you had to do the best with the situation at hand. The hellhound story was better than nothing. So you hacked Weiss's body into pieces small enough to fit into those file boxes, then you grabbed a dolly and ferried it all down to your car."
"Making sure to doctor the security access logs on your way out of the office," Gray added.
Blake shifted his gaze to Gray in bewilderment.
"That's right, almost forgot that part," Mack agreed. "You couldn't let the system show that you'd been in the office with Weiss, so you doctored those log entries — which had the added benefit of shoring up your hellhound story, making it look as though no one had been in or out of that room since Weiss's arrival Sunday morning." Mack winked at Blake and concluded sarcastically, "If no one else had been in the office, it must've been the hellhound, right?"
"Our people figured out your hack right about the time we hauled you in yesterday," Gray said. "It was smart of you, not deleting the entries outright. The gaps in the record would have been glaring. Instead, you just edited the dates—the timestamps — randomly changing the values so those log entries looked like ancient history. That way, they wouldn't show up in the summary of weekend activity." It actually wasn't that great a hack, ac
cording to Bobbi, who was embarrassed she hadn't thought to check for that kind of thing sooner. The database knew what order the log entries had been created, but it turned out that sixteen of them were out of order according to their timestamp values — and thus must have been doctored. Unfortunately, the random nature of the changes meant Bobbi couldn't reconstruct the original timestamp values, only guess at them. Seven of the log entries were associated with the door to Blake's old office, and seven more with the front door to ATC's office suite. The other two were when Blake entered and exited the security office, when he performed the alterations.
Blake clearly wasn't ready to confess yet. He just shook his head back and forth, unendingly. The lawyer, meanwhile, was looking profoundly uncomfortable.
Mack continued. "After you left the parking garage, you drove... somewhere. Probably multiple somewheres, hiding or burying Weiss's body parts. At some point along the way, you bought or stole some heavy-duty textile dye so you could soak each of those body parts before disposing of them."
Blake's headshaking froze. "Why would I do that?" he asked in apparent bewilderment.
"Because you're actually a pretty bright guy," Mack smirked. "According to the ME, textile dye is a great way to compromise DNA identification of human remains. If those body parts are ever found, they'll be unidentifiable as Ed Weiss's, which just muddies this whole case even further. That only helps you. Plus, again, if Weiss's remains are never found..." He trailed off, as if inviting someone to finish his sentence, then finally finished it himself: "... then it must've been the hellhound."
"I — didn't — kill — Weiss," Blake said emphatically, a hunted look in his eyes.
Mack smiled more broadly. "The case against you looks pretty solid from our end. We've got plenty of people who will testify that you hated Weiss's guts, so we've got second degree in the bag. Personally, I think we can get first degree, considering the way you hacked the guy's body into pieces and then tried to cover up your crime." He spoke conversationally. "Assuming Weiss was still alive when you started cutting him, that constitutes torture — so we don't even need premeditation to get first degree. And first degree means life without parole." Mack turned to Gray. "I'm not usually an advocate of the death penalty, but in this case, it's too bad New York got rid of it."
Blake looked like he was going to be ill.
Gray leaned in. "If you make a full confession, the DA is willing to offer manslaughter."
"You'd better hurry, though," Mack said wickedly. "That offer goes out the window as soon as we find the body and get Weiss's death certificate signed. And now that we know who killed him, I bet we can retrace your steps and find Weiss... or enough of him... in fairly short order."
"But I didn't kill him!" Blake insisted.
Completely ignoring the desperate man beside him, the lawyer looked earnestly at the detectives. "Would you mind giving me a few minutes to discuss this with my client?"
Wednesday, August 19th
New York City
Charles Blake may not have killed Edgar Weiss, but ten days after Weiss's disappearance, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that ATC's former lead programmer was dead. The blood found at the scene of the crime had long since been established as human, and DNA comparison had eventually confirmed it as belonging to Ed Weiss. And considering just how much blood had been spilled, it seemed impossible that Weiss survived the encounter.
But was Blake the murderer or not? The evidence against Weiss's former boss was overwhelming, but more and more, Gray found himself quietly questioning the man's guilt. More than a week after his arrest, Blake still maintained his innocence — fervently. And while the suspect's protestations were hardly convincing on their own, it was Blake's behavior that struck Gray as inconsistent, assuming the man was indeed the murderer. At no point had Blake denied being in the ATC offices on that fateful day. And yet someone had gone to the effort of doctoring the security logs, hiding the fact that Blake had been there. Who else but Blake would have done such a thing? And yet, why would Blake go to all that trouble, then freely admit he'd been in his office having an altercation with the victim the very same hour Weiss was apparently killed?
Unless Blake was playing a deeper game. Gray had come back to that possibility repeatedly in the last week — as often as he'd found himself questioning Blake's guilt. Maybe Blake was hoping to present this very argument in court, that if he were the murderer — the person who had doctored the security logs, deleting the evidence of his visit — he hardly would have admitted to being on the premises that day.
Then again, who else could it have been?
No, Gray inevitably concluded. Inconsistent though Blake's behavior may seem, it was hard to envision a scenario in which he was innocent, not without ignoring the facts. Blake had the means, motive, and opportunity to kill Weiss, and the fingerprint evidence very clearly showed Weiss's blood on his hands. Besides, only seven people had keycard access to the ATC security office, and Gray had been able to verify alibis for the other six.
So why couldn't Gray quiet his doubts? Sitting at his desk in the precinct, case file open before him, Gray reviewed the evidence for the thousandth time — hoping that this time, it would convince him of Blake's guilt.
It didn't.
Gray heaved a frustrated sigh, snatching the empty coffee mug from his desk and rising to get a refill. Try though he might, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing a big piece of the puzzle, that someone else—someone other than Charles Blake — might have a motive for killing Weiss.
As if in answer to his unspoken prayer, the phone rang.
Gray met the caller four hours later in the lobby of a decidedly upscale apartment building on the Upper West Side. Bonita Schaber was in her forties, a pleasant woman, professional in both attire and demeanor. After handing back his ID and returning her own credentials to her purse, Schaber said, "Nice place."
"Very," Gray agreed, looking around with interest.
"You've not been here before?"
"No, my partner performed this interview," Gray said, shaking his head.
"And if not for my call, you never would have come back here, would you?" she asked, her eyes shining with excitement.
"Probably not," Gray admitted, "but let's not get ahead of ourselves. You've brought new information to my attention, and while that certainly could provide motive, I don't have any other reason to suspect Mrs. Weiss of murdering her husband." Schaber didn't need to know how interested he was in developing alternative theories as to who murdered Ed Weiss.
"I understand," Schaber said. "Shall we head up?"
They made their way to the elevator bank and rode up to the proper floor in relative silence. The home of Edgar and Candy Weiss was the first on the left once they exited, and Mrs. Weiss answered the door promptly when they rang.
"Detective Gaynes?" she asked, then nodded when he showed her his shield and ID. "And who is this?"
"Mrs. Weiss," Schaber said, extending a hand. "I'm so sorry about your husband. My name is Bonita Schaber. I... work for the company that underwrote his life insurance policy."
"Oh?" Mrs. Weiss stared at the other woman for a long moment, then glanced rapidly back and forth between her two visitors, finally focusing her attention on Schaber again. "Mr. Gaynes called ahead, but I didn't realize anyone would be visiting from the insurance company."
"In that case, let me apologize," Schaber said smoothly. "There are a number of questions I need to talk through with you in order to process your claim. It's mostly a formality, but we can't cut any corners when dealing with a policy the size of your husband's."
Almost against her will, Mrs. Weiss's eyes cut back towards Gray. He could immediately tell this was not a conversation she wanted to be having in front of him. She opened her mouth to speak—
"Mrs. Weiss, let me apologize as well," he said. "I should have let you know Ms. Schaber was joining me. We know this is a very trying time for you, and we wanted to minimize the interr
uption to your day." He shook his head. "But you are well within your rights if you'd prefer to speak to us separately."
The older woman paused, obviously reconsidering what she'd been about to say. "Oh, it's perfectly fine. Please, both of you, come in." She stepped back, making way for them to enter her home. "It's not like I have anything to hide."
Interesting. Mrs. Weiss's logic was spot on, of course. If she had nothing to hide, she really shouldn't have a problem talking to them both at the same time. But would an innocent woman even be thinking in those terms, or would she simply have invited them both in without ever worrying whether her behavior seemed suspicious?
Or was Gray overthinking things yet again?
He studied Weiss's widow as she closed the door behind them, then led them down the hall. Candy Weiss was an elegant woman in her early sixties, immaculately dressed, makeup perfect, not one hair out of place in her coiffure. The obvious care she'd given to her appearance only made her tired, baggy eyes all the more obvious by contrast. She was clearly under a great deal of stress, but was it the innocent stress of a woman grieving the disappearance or death of her husband? Or was it the pressure of guilt and fear weighing her down — the guilt of having caused her husband's death, and the fear of being found out?
She escorted her visitors into a small sitting room, retreated to the kitchen, and returned a moment later with glasses and a pitcher of iced tea.
"Mrs. Weiss," Gray began, after taking a sip of the bitter drink, "thank you again for making time for me. I know discussing the details of your husband's disappearance must be hard."
The woman nodded slowly. "Yes, but if there's any way for me to help... When we spoke on the phone, you said you had questions based on new evidence?"
"I do," he confirmed. "But first, if you don't mind, can you talk me through that weekend again? In particular, I want to verify what days and times you spoke with your husband."
And so she did as requested, recounting how she'd left the morning of Friday, August 7th, for a weekend at a spa upstate, and how her husband had called that afternoon to tell her of his promotion at work. Of how she'd wanted to come home to celebrate with him, but how he'd told her to stay, that he intended to spend the weekend at the office, preparing for a fresh start on Monday. She definitely seemed to grow more emotional at this point of the story; by deciding to stay at the spa, she'd probably sacrificed her last opportunity to see her husband alive. After that, she'd spoken with him twice on Saturday, and then one last time on Sunday, around noon — the conversation that was cut short on Mr. Weiss's end by Blake's arrival. Mrs. Weiss left the spa for her drive home a few hours later. "I expected to find him here when I arrived," she concluded, growing emotional, "but the house was empty."