by R. L. Akers
"And what time did you get home?" Gray asked.
"Around 7:30, I think."
"And you never spoke with your husband again after that noon call?"
Her hesitation was only slight. "No, that was the last time."
"And what time did you call the police?" Gray already knew what time, of course.
"About 8 o'clock?"
The detective feigned surprise. "So soon?"
Her face flushed. "Well... yes. Ed should have been here when I got home. I called his office and his cell — several times — and he never answered, so yes, I called the police."
Gray studied the widow for a long moment. Did he really want to interrogate this poor woman? That was, after all, the reason he had met Schaber here today, but now that he was sitting in Candy Weiss's home, on Candy Weiss's sofa, looking her in the eye... he hesitated. By all accounts, this woman's husband had been brutally murdered. Gray already had a suspect in custody, with a very plausible explanation for how the whole grisly thing had played out. It would be cruel — perhaps criminally so — to put the victim's widow through further distress just so Gray could pick at the edges of a few details that still bothered him. He needed to let go of his doubts and close the case. If Mack had been here — if he'd had any idea Gray was here, interviewing the wife yet again — he'd have told Gray the same thing. Vehemently.
But Gray couldn't let go. Not until he was satisfied that every detail fit.
"Mrs. Weiss, I can understand your concern that your husband wasn't home when he should have been. Believe me, I get it. But... there must have been more innocent explanations. Maybe he'd gone to a late movie. Maybe it was something else, but he misplaced his phone and couldn't call you or answer your calls." Gray shook his head slowly. "Considering he was only a couple hours overdue, I'm just surprised you were so quick to call the police."
Gray stopped himself, realizing he had said too much. From the sudden narrowing of her eyes, it was clear Mrs. Weiss had caught the implication of his words. Improvising hurriedly, Gray said, "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful you called as early as you did, because it helped us get a jump start on the case. I'm just trying to get a better feel for... things," he concluded lamely.
Lame or not, his rationalization seemed to reassure her. "I understand," she said graciously. "But I just knew something was wrong. My husband is a very thoughtful man, Detective. He would have called to let me know he changed his plans. If need be, he would have found a payphone."
Gray was rather skeptical of that — he didn't know many husbands who were that conscientious — but he found himself distracted by her use of a present tense verb to describe her husband. My husband is a very thoughtful man, she'd said. Clearly, Candy Weiss had not yet accepted that her husband was dead, and Gray supposed that was more than appropriate in her position, especially considering the circumstances. It certainly made her look all the more innocent as Gray was contemplating the possibility of her involvement in her husband's death.
But then, if she hadn't accepted her husband's death — if she was still clinging to the fact that his body was missing, hoping he might yet reappear safe and sound — why had Candy Weiss already filed a claim on her husband's life insurance? That was a question Gray very much wanted to ask, if he could do so without seeming completely insensitive... though Schaber had told him it really wasn't that unusual to file quickly if the beneficiary was concerned about funeral expenses.
Something seemed to occur to Mrs. Weiss, and she added, "Besides, I was worried Charlie Blake may have hurt him. You know, I heard him yelling at Ed during that last phone call."
Gray frowned. "Good point." A very good point, in fact — a very plausible reason for calling to report her husband missing so quickly, considering Mr. Blake's famous temper.
So then, why hadn't that been the first reason Mrs. Weiss gave when Gray asked?
"Tell me about the bad blood between them," Gray pressed on. "Between your husband and Mr. Blake, I mean."
The widow's brow furrowed, and she didn't immediately answer Gray's question. "You've already arrested Charlie, right? Detective McMurphy told me you'd found evidence that he... that he killed Ed."
"That's correct," Gray said simply.
"Then... if I may ask... what are you still investigating?"
Gray hesitated. "There are a few things that still don't add up for me, unfortunately."
She seemed to tense. "Oh? Like what?"
The detective glanced at Schaber, who had been silent through all of this. The insurance lady was following their conversation with great interest. "Well," Gray said, turning his attention back to Mrs. Weiss, "for one thing, the fact that someone doctored the security logs to hide that Mr. Blake had been in the office that day."
The widow frowned. "Why doesn't that make sense? Charlie would have wanted to hide that he'd been there, to make sure he wasn't a suspect."
Gray nodded slowly. "Yes, but he's never tried to deny that he was there. From the very beginning, he's been quite open about the fact that he and your husband fought — well, argued — that day in his office."
"But the evidence..." Her face began to cloud with emotion.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weiss, I really shouldn't be upsetting you like this. I didn't mean to get into discussing any of these details." Except of course that he did. He watched her carefully.
Mrs. Weiss composed herself. "No, I want to know." She blotted her eyes with a tissue from the side table. "You're saying you don't think Charlie did it?"
Gray let that question hang in the air for a long moment, meeting Candy Weiss's eyes, reading a very real tension that hadn't been there until the moment he questioned Blake's guilt. Did the woman's sudden anxiety mean anything? Or was she upset because he was calling into question everything she thought she knew about the most traumatic event of her life? That would be enough to upset anyone, right?
The detective's cell phone started to ring, but he quickly suppressed it without breaking eye contact. He let the tension last as long as he could, then leaned forward finally. "In my opinion, off the record... I think the evidence is pretty clear that Mr. Blake is the killer," Gray hedged, and Mrs. Weiss relaxed visibly. "But this thing with the security logs. I can't help wondering if someone else might be involved."
The tension was back in an instant, clear as day. "I don't understand."
Gray's phone tweedled a voicemail notification, but he continued to ignore it. "Do you know of any reason someone else might have wanted to hurt your husband?"
"No," she shook her head emphatically.
"Did he have any enemies?"
"No. No, of course not. Everybody loved Ed." She paused. "I don't understand. Charlie attacked my husband in a fit of rage. Detective McMurphy said so." That was true enough. Mack had visited Mrs. Weiss in person after Blake's arrest, to inform her of the charges they were bringing against the man. "But," she continued, growing emotional again, "you're making it sound like— like— well, like a conspiracy or something."
Gray opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted again by his phone, this time a text message notification.
"Are you going to get that?" Mrs. Weiss demanded in exasperation, reaching for another tissue.
Gray glanced at the smartphone's screen. The call, voicemail, and text — all had been from Mack, with the text reading, Call me. NOW!!! Gray gritted his teeth. Terrible timing, but there was no helping it. "Excuse me for a moment." He stepped into the next room to call his partner.
When he returned five minutes later, it was clear the tension had dissipated during his absence. The two women were in the midst of what sounded like standard questions and answers related to filing insurance claims. He waited for an opportune moment, then reinserted himself into the conversation.
"Mrs. Weiss, I just got off the phone with Detective McMurphy." He paused. "They just found your husband's body — at least, they think it's your husband. I'm so sorry."
Candy Weiss rose abruptly, turning away
. She stood like that, motionless, for at least a minute.
Finally, Gray spoke again. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, but... Would you be willing to come down to the morgue and make a positive identification?"
There was a long moment of silence.
"Okay," she finally said, her voice under immense strain.
"Thank you. Let me give you a ride."
"She's involved," Gray said softly. "I'm sure of it."
Beside him, Mack swore under his breath. "Buddy, she has a rock solid alibi, and we have the killer in custody. All the evidence points to Charles Blake. Weiss's body was cut up in the way we expected, and we even found the murder weapon with the body."
"Where was the body found?"
"Abandoned textile factory. He was floating in a barrel of dye... in pieces, of course. Uniforms got an anonymous tip and picked up the pieces on Saturday, but it took this long to make the connection with our case. No ID on the body."
Gray frowned thoughtfully. If the body was found this last Saturday, that would have been about six days after the murder. It had likely been decomposing at an accelerated rate that entire time. "Fingerprints on the knife?" he asked.
"No, but it matches the description of the knife Blake had on display in his office, the one missing from his belongings. I bet anyone at ATC could identify it as his."
"No," Gray shook his head. "It's a frame job. And Candy Weiss is involved."
Mack started to throw his hands in the air — his signature sign of frustration when he felt Gray was plunging into the theoretical deep end — but he aborted the motion. "For the love of— Seriously? You're saying she was working with someone else to murder her husband. Who? And why?"
"The why is easy — money. According to Schaber, her husband's life insurance policy is hefty enough that she could spend the rest of her days on a Caribbean island — a private Caribbean island."
That got Mack's attention. "Okay, but who was she working with?" he asked after a moment. "And how could they have faked the evidence so convincingly?"
Gray didn't answer immediately, instead studying the back of Candy Weiss's head. She and Schaber were walking down the hall about ten yards ahead of the detectives, led by one of the ME's assistants. It was a little irregular for the insurance investigator to be tagging along, but Mrs. Weiss seemed to appreciate the moral support the other woman offered. The operative word being seemed. Mrs. Weiss was playing the part of the grieving widow to perfection, but Gray was on to her now. "How the evidence was faked, I honestly don't know," Gray said quietly. "Yet."
This time Mack did throw his hands into the air.
"As to who she was working with, I have two theories."
"Better hurry up, we're almost there."
"First possibility, she hired a professional, as much to take out her husband as to protect her alibi."
"Farfetched," Mack said immediately, snorting. "There are so many problems with that theory, I don't even know where to start."
"This coming from the man who thought the hellhound did it?"
"I never actually thought—"
"Relax, I happen to agree," Gray said, nodding. "It is farfetched. For one thing, how would a woman like Candy Weiss go about hiring a hit man? For another, no pro I've ever met would have gone along with such a messy and elaborate deception. He'd have knifed the guy in the street and been done with it."
"And theory number two?" Mack prompted.
Gray braced himself. "The other possibility... the more likely possibility... is that Candy was working with Ed Weiss himself."
Mack stopped abruptly. The distance between the detectives and the two women lengthened as he stood there, working through the implications. "You're suggesting," he said slowly, "that Ed Weiss faked his own death."
"And pinned it on Blake, yes. Think about it," Gray said excitedly. "Weiss certainly had motive to ruin Blake's life, and he's the only other person we know was there that day. Plus, since his security credentials had been upgraded to match Blake's, he had access to the security office and could have doctored the logs — we vetted everyone else who had access to that office, but we ignored the fact that Weiss had access too. We thought he was the victim, after all." Gray had been thinking about this all the way to the morgue, and the longer he pondered it, the more sense it made. "The thing is, we know the damning log entries had their date values altered — who's to say the employee ID for each of those entries wasn't altered too?" Gray shook his head. "If I were trying to frame Blake, that's what I'd do. Change my keycard log events to make it look like he was the one opening all those doors, which also made it look like I — Weiss — never left the office after arriving."
"In that case, why change the date values too? Why hide the record of Blake's presence in the distant past?"
"Because that would have been a little too obvious. Let's say it really was Blake. He wouldn't go to all that trouble gimmicking the crime scene, making it look like he was never there, knowing the security logs would prove he was."
Mack nodded slowly, then thought of a new objection. "But Gray, all that blood at the crime scene... If Weiss was faking his own death—"
"The guy was a blood donor. Maybe he stole seven liters back from the blood bank. Or maybe he just stockpiled a supply of his own. He'd sat in that chair enough times, he probably could've figured out how to do it for himself."
"You realize this sounds even more farfetched than your hit man theory? You know how hard it is to fake your own death these days? With fingerprints, dental records, DNA, facial recognition..." Mack shook his head.
"It's well nigh impossible, I know. That doesn't mean Weiss wouldn't try." Ahead of them, the assistant was holding a door for Mrs. Weiss and the insurance investigator. "I guess we're about to find out." Gray grinned. "Today's umpteen-million dollar question: Is that Edgar Weiss's body in there? C'mon, I don't want to miss his wife's reaction when they pull back the sheet."
"—warn you," the ME was saying when they entered the room. "The body has decomposed a remarkable amount in such a short period of time, thanks to the fact that it was placed in a barrel of textile dye — which was most likely done for that express purpose, to accelerate decomposition and destroy any possibility of DNA identification."
"Will I be able to recognize him?" Mrs. Weiss managed to ask.
"You should, yes," the ME said matter-of-factly. "His face is rather bl — um, swollen... but he should be identifiable."
"His..." Mrs. Weiss started to say, clearly surprised. She seemed to brace herself, then nodded. The ME relayed the nod to his assistant, who carefully folded back the sheet. He didn't pull it far, folding it just beneath the chin in order to hide the fact that the man's head had been separated from his torso.
All fell silent for an interminable moment... and then an inhuman wail arose from within Candy Weiss. She staggered forward to lean over the body, her eyes wide. As tears began streaming down her face, the ME tried to pull her away, lest she disturb the body. Stepping back, she stumbled and went down on hands and knees, where she promptly vomited.
Whatever reaction Gray might have anticipated, this wasn't it. Grief, yes — perhaps overacted grief, if she'd been involved in causing or even faking Weiss's death. But this? Genuine surprise? Her reaction was so different from what Gray was expecting, there was no question in his mind that it was genuine.
Mack had apparently come to the same conclusion. "So much for your theory that Weiss faked his own death," he said quietly. "Unless you think she's that good an actress?"
Gray's eyes were on Candy Weiss as the ME's assistant helped her up and led her from the room. "No, I think I'm convinced." Gray turned to stand over the body. "She clearly thinks this is her husband."
The door closed behind the widow, cutting off her wails abruptly, and the ME apparently caught the tail end of Gray's hushed comment. "Was there any doubt?"
Gray shrugged.
"Well, as waterlogged as the body is, fingerprints were impossible; and as
I mentioned, DNA was out too. But I got dental results back just before you arrived. They're a match — there's no doubt this is Edgar Weiss."
Mack looked up, frowning. "Then why put the wife through all of this?"
"Closure," the man said simply. He reached for the sheet, paused. "You want to see the rest of it?"
"Not especially," Mack said.
Bonita Schaber stirred from the corner she'd backed into upon seeing the bloated face of the man her company insured. "I think I've seen everything I need to see," she said hurriedly. "I take it you'll be signing the death certificate shortly?"
"That's correct," the ME confirmed.
The woman turned to Gray. "At this point, do you think there's any chance Mrs. Weiss was involved in her husband's death?"
Gray traded glances with Mack, then looked towards the door through which Mrs. Weiss had just exited. The woman's husband had been missing for over a week. Before now, there'd been strong evidence he was dead, but nothing fully conclusive. What must that have been like for her? The stress and uncertainty she'd been under for the last ten days... Was it so hard to believe she would act erratically under those circumstances? After the display he'd just seen, he couldn't doubt her grief was real — and since Weiss was clearly dead, that ruled out the possibility they'd been working together to fake his death.