“She’s spending a few days with Sophia at my in-laws’ place.” Biden closed the door behind them. He turned toward them and, without meeting Joe’s eyes, said dully, “What is it?”
Joe took his time answering, examining Biden. Roger was right—he looked like shit. His eyes were sunken, his lips tight. His arms hung loose at his sides but his fingers twitched as if playing some unseen instrument. He smelled as if he had not showered in some time. It looked as if Biden’s defenses might be crumbling.
“Is there somewhere we could sit?” Joe asked. Biden gestured vaguely toward the parlor and turned in that direction but Joe said, “Why don’t we use the library?”
Biden hesitated then crossed the entrance hall and opened the door to the library. They entered and Joe gestured to the couch. “Have a seat, Mr. Firth.”
Biden stayed standing in the middle of the room. “I don’t need to sit. What do you have to tell me?”
“We got some more test results on your wife’s body back from the forensics lab,” said Joe, holding up the manila folder he carried.
Firth’s lips narrowed. “And?”
Joe flipped open the folder. “Although it’s not possible to pinpoint the time of death, it seems likely that she died around the time she disappeared.”
Firth nodded grimly. “I think we all assumed that.”
“Yes,” Joe agreed. “It was also not possible to determine the cause of death, although choking seems to be the most likely.”
“I know that already. In fact, as you might recall, you are the one who told me that, several weeks ago. I’d recommend you check your records before you come to my house to re-tell me ‘developments’ in my wife’s case.”
“Yes, of course. I should have realized you wouldn’t need to be reminded of those details,” said Joe, a hint of condescension in his voice.
“So may I return to my plans now?” said Biden, beginning to turn toward the door to the entrance hall.
“No, not quite yet,” said Joe, and caught a spasm of irritation on Biden’s face. “I realize you’re a busy man but I do have some information that I only got yesterday. They analyzed scrapings from your wife’s fingernails. There were gray fibers there that might have come from automobile carpeting. It’s used in several high end car lines—primarily BMW and Mercedes. Including last year’s Mercedes E-Class.” Joe flipped to another page in the folder then looked up. “That’s the car you drive, isn’t it, Mr. Firth?”
There was a long pause. Joe was surprised at how muted the sounds of the traffic right outside the window were. Biden’s face had gone from flushed to white. “What are you saying?” he said hoarsely.
“Is it possible anyone else could have had access to your car the night your wife disappeared? You’ve said that your wife left by the front door but is it possible she left by the back door and took your car? Or left by the front door and circled back to the garage? Maybe she took your car and someone attacked her and then used the car to dispose of her body.”
“And then returned it to my garage in time for me to drive it to the shore the next day?” snarled Biden his color beginning to heighten again. Joe fleetingly thought that if he couldn’t put Biden Firth behind bars, perhaps he could give him a heart attack.
“It does seem like a long shot,” said Joe mildly. “But not impossible. Especially it if was a member of the household. Perhaps Miss Davies or Miss Brouwer.”
Biden’s voice rose in unbalanced mimicry of his father. “You think Joan or Esme strangled my wife and used my car to dump her body?” he asked incredulously.
“As I said, it’s a long shot but one worth following up on. I’d like your permission to take a sample of the carpet fibers from your car.”
Firth took a step toward Joe who took a step back. “What the fuck are you talking about?” said Firth in a ragged whisper then, in a louder voice, “What the fuck are you talking about?” His hands were balled into fists and Joe mentally checked the accessibility of his gun in his shoulder holster. “You may not have my permission to take samples from my car. You don’t think it was the housekeeper or the nanny. Or the fucking butler in the library with a knife, for God’s sake. Get out of my house! You come here telling me my wife was choked to death and then put in the trunk of a car and then you tell me you want to search my car? Get out of my house and don’t come back unless you have a warrant! Get out now!!”
Joe flipped the folder closed. “Calm down, Mr. Firth, we’re just following up on every lead and trying to eliminate possibilities. We’re leaving.” He turned toward the door but was careful to keep Firth in his peripheral vision.
“Don’t come back to my house,” yelled Firth as Joe and Harry left the room. “And if you want to talk to me again, call my lawyer. I’m going to be talking to the commissioner about this!”
“Fine,” muttered Joe as he opened the front door. He turned to look once again at the entrance hall, where he was sure Biden Firth had killed his wife, when Firth appeared at the library doorway.
“Get OUT!” Firth said with a strangled cry.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Firth,” said Joe, and he pulled the door shut.
“Congratulations, I think you rattled him,” said Harry archly.
“That wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” muttered Joe as they headed back to the car.
In the entrance hall, Biden Firth strode to the door, locked it, and, with trembling hands, slid the chain into place. He walked to the back of the house, bumping into the sideboard as he went, rattling the plates inside, and descended the stairs to the garage. He popped open the trunk of the Mercedes and looked in. The carpet covering the floor of the trunk was black. Booth has said they had found gray fiber. He pushed the trunk closed and then froze. The blood pounding in his ears, he popped the trunk open again. The top of the trunk was carpeted with gray.
Jesus God, he thought, covering his face with his hands, she was alive when I put her in the trunk and she tried to claw her way out.
Chapter 35
When Joe got to his desk the next day, there was a piece of paper—in fact, that day’s page from his Philadelphia Eagles daily desk calendar—with “See me!” scrawled on it in red. With an internal groan—or perhaps it was external since The Mouse glanced his way—he headed for his boss’s office and knocked on the frame of the open door.
Margaret Fraker waved him in with a hand that looked as if it should be holding an unfiltered cigarette but was in fact holding a coffee stirrer. A few spatters of coffee moistened the papers littering her desk. “Come in. Shut the door.”
Joe did as he was told then stood uncertainly. He didn’t have much experience being called to the principal’s office.
“Sit,” said Margaret and Joe did.
Margaret leaned forward in her chair and looked intently at Joe then said, with mild annoyance, “What the fuck?”
“What?” said Joe.
“That’s what I just asked you.” She stuck the coffee stirrer in her mouth and Joe swore he saw her inhale.
“Uh, is this about the Firth case?”
“Of course it’s about the Firth case. What other case are you working on that would be worth me calling you into my office for?” Joe shrugged and Margaret sighed. “I got a call from the Firths’ lawyer. He said you showed up at Biden Firth’s house and accused him of choking his wife and putting her in the trunk of his car.” She sat back and looked at Joe with her eyebrows up.
“I just told him about some analysis results we just got.”
“The carpet fibers?”
“Yes.”
“Why tell him about that before we had a chance to look into it more? Did you expect him to get all contrite and confess?”
Joe didn’t reply but a flush began to spread up his neck.
Margaret waved the coffee stirrer. “Of course they’d fire me if they heard me say it but if it was some schmuck from West Philly with a dead wife, we’d just bring him in and sweat him for a while but it’s Biden fucking Fir
th with his million dollar lawyers and we need to handle him with kid gloves.”
“We do?” said Joe angrily.
Margaret tossed the coffee stirrer into the trash and leaned forward again. “Of course we do,” she said and then, somewhat more gently, “you know that.”
“Does this have anything to do with whose campaign Firth Senior is giving his millions to?” said Joe angrily.
“You know better than that, Joe. It’s all about media exposure these days. We mishandle the case of that West Philly guy and who ever hears about it? We mishandle a case involving two of the biggest family names in Philly and every news outlet with a camera, a mike, or a web site is going to be all over it. Sad but true.”
“There were carpet fibers from his car trunk—his trunk roof—under her fingernails—”
“There are tons of cars out there that use that carpet.”
“He mentioned the trunk of the car before I said anything about the trunk—”
“Joe, if you mention a dead body and car fibers in the same sentence, ninety-nine people out of a hundred are going to think you’re talking about the trunk.”
“Shit,” muttered Joe. He generally had a policy not to swear in front of women but Margaret didn’t seem to count. “You know, it’s like he’s charmed. Everybody thinks he did it but nothing is quite enough to arrest him for it.”
“I know. It sucks.”
“So he’s going to get away with it.”
“Not if we find something airtight to tie him to the murder,” said Margaret. “But it’s not going to be you finding that something, at least right now. I need you to back off for a little while.” Joe opened his mouth but Margaret put up her hand. “Just for a little while. Until I can smooth things over.”
*****
Joe fussed, with increasing irritation, with paperwork at his desk until mid-afternoon when he decided he had had enough. As he jammed his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, his phone, quiet all day, rang. Reaching for it, he bumped the styrofoam cup containing the dregs of that morning’s coffee and sent a stream of grayish liquid spilling across his blotter.
“Damn!” he said, fumbling in the desk drawer for napkins. He snatched up the phone. “What?”
“Uh, hello?” Joe recognized Mike Kinnear.
Joe tossed the soggy napkins toward his waste paper basket where they bounced off the edge and landed with a splat on the floor. “Damn! What??”
“It’s Mike Kinnear—”
“I know. What do you want? No, don’t tell me, you think I should get a search warrant. What a good idea—why didn’t I think of that? No, wait, I did think of that and got told it was not a good idea. Several times.” Joe sat down heavily in his chair. “Biden Firth complained and now I’m being told to lay off the case. For a little while,” he added nastily.
“Oh,” said Mike, followed by a long pause. “Well, I think it’s very short-sighted of them—”
“Don’t start with me,” said Joe, “I’m not asking again—”
“No, of course not, I totally understand,” said Mike hastily. “I could hardly ask you to do more than you’ve already done. I appreciate it. Really.”
“Hmph,” said Joe.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”
Good-byes were exchanged and the call ended. Joe retrieved the soggy napkins from the floor and dropped them in the wastebasket. Getting Mike Kinnear to lay off the Firth case had been easier than he had expected.
Chapter 36
Late on a warm May afternoon, Mark Pironi stood on the marble step of the Firth townhouse opening the door for a prospective buyer.
“I think this is going to be perfect for your needs, Mr. Pate,” he said, “fine workmanship but not an overwhelmingly large place.”
“Please, call me Scott,” said the prospective buyer.
Scott and Pironi moved from room to room, Scott making appreciative comments regarding the fine woodwork and practical lay-out of the house. He peered at a still life oil hanging over an antique sideboard in the entrance hall. “Beautiful decor as well,” said Scott, “with all this fine artwork I suppose there is a burglar alarm?”
“Not one installed now but I'd be happy to put you in touch with someone who could give you an estimate for what it would cost to install a system,” said Pironi, making a note on a manila folder. Scott nodded agreeably.
In the third floor gym, Scott pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and, with Pironi’s help, took a number of measurements of the room and the equipment. (“The seller might be willing to include the gym equipment if you’re interested,” said Pironi.)
As they finished touring the top floor, Scott said, “I have what will probably sound like an odd request. I live in an old house now and I find that when people walk around on the floor above me it makes a terrible racket. I was wondering if you would mind if I went down to the next floor and you could walk around up here just so I can hear what it sounds like.”
“Sure,” said Pironi. Scott descended to the second floor and in a moment heard, faintly, Pironi walking around on the third floor. After a minute he said, “Thanks, that’s good.”
Pironi came down the steps. “How did it sound?”
“Very faint. Great construction on some of these older homes.”
They toured the second floor and Scott make the same request—he descended to the first floor while Pironi walked around on the second floor.
“A little noisier that time,” said Scott.
“Well, the third floor is mainly carpeted but the second floor has a lot of bare hardwood floors,” pointed out Pironi.
“True,” conceded Scott.
When they got to the back of the house, after checking out the kitchen, Pironi opened a door off the back hall with a flourish. “And an attached two car garage! Very unusual to find that in a townhouse of this era.”
“Indeed,” said Scott, descending the stairs to the garage. “And a workbench, very handy.” He opened a door next to the two garage doors and peered out onto the alley behind the house. “Tidy,” he said.
“Yes, a very well maintained house,” agreed Pironi.
Scott closed the door and latched it. He pointed toward the ceiling of the garage. “Do you mind?”
“Oh, sure,” said Pironi, and shortly Scott heard him walking around in the room above the garage. He clicked the latch of the outside door open again and then climbed the steps to the kitchen.
“Could hardly hear a thing!” he called out.
*****
Biden was spending a fair number of his nights away from home these days. He had largely been faithful to Elizabeth while they were married, and had been discreet about his few indiscretions. Now, however, he had given up on discretion—many Friday or Saturday nights he would go to a bar or a club and leave with a woman and take her to a hotel. Sometimes money changed hands, sometimes it did not—the experiences seemed equivalent to him. Joan was staying in the third floor apartment most nights now, so Biden felt comfortable that Sophia was being well taken care of during his absences.
Pironi had shown the house to a prospective buyer earlier in the day—“a real queen” as Pironi described him—but they had left a few hours ago and Firth had been able to get back into the house to get ready for his evening out—dinner at the country club with a acquaintance from Penn then visits to some of their old haunts. He pulled out of the garage around 7:00, leaving Joan in the kitchen with Sophia, the smoked glass of the Mercedes wrapping him in a dark, anonymous cocoon. He barely paid attention to the man with the wide-brimmed hat and knapsack, earbuds in place, who was walking down the alley.
Mike hit the speed dial on his cell phone. “He just left, let’s give it a couple of minutes.”
A few minutes later Scott knocked on the front door, the cell phone, with the line still open to Mike's phone, tucked into his front pocket. In a moment Joan answered the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, my name is Scot
t Pate, I was here earlier looking at the house and after I left I realized I had lost something, I'm thinking I might have dropped it in the house.”
“I'm sorry, I can’t let you in,” said Joan, flustered.
“No, of course not, I was just wondering if you would look around for me, I can wait here.”
Joan considered. “That would be all right. What did you lose?”
“It was a St. Christopher’s medal. I had it in my pocket and I think it might have fallen out when I pulled out a tape measure. I was taking some measurements in the gym room on the third floor, I think it’s most likely that I lost it there. It’s silver and about this big,” he said, holding is fingers about two inches apart.
“OK, let me take a look,” said Joan. “Uh, would you like a drink of water?”
“Oh, no thank you, I’m fine,” said Scott.
“All right, I’ll be right back,” said Joan, and she shut the door, Scott hearing the sound a deadbolt snapping shut.
“OK, she’s on her way upstairs. I hope,” he said to the air.
Behind the house, Mike opened the unlocked back door and stepped into the dark garage, then clicked on a small LED flashlight. He went quickly to the cabinet and, taking a pair of bolt cutters out of the knapsack, snapped the combination lock off. He removed the broken lock and dropped it into the knapsack, then opened the cabinet doors and shone the light inside.
There was a variety of objects in the cabinet—a number of cans of paint and other flammable substances such as lighter fluid and turpentine. He scanned the shelves, looking for something blue. A number of the containers had blue labels but his eye was drawn to two paint cans with drips of blue paint on the outside. He picked them up and, drawing a large black garbage bag out of the knapsack, carefully lowered them into it. He also noticed a blue grease gun and added that to the knapsack.
As he was closing the doors of the cabinet he heard Scott's voice through the earbuds. “Oh, excellent, I’m so happy you found it! Thanks so much for your help.”
The Sense of Death: An Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel (The Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels Book 1) Page 21