“I don’t blame him for asking. I will blame you for talking. All we need is to have every lead show up on the six o’clock news. I already lost one partner that way.”
“Hey—”
“All I need is to have you report each move I make to the mayor, so that every delay, every avenue that doesn’t pan out, is all laid to my incompetence. This is my life here, lady.”
“Paranoid, aren’t you?” she said as forcefully as she could while keeping her voice low. She glanced around, but the mourners sought the shelter of their cars and no one was paying any attention to them. “I am not going to tell him anything about the investigation other than what I can tell him.”
“And who determines that?”
“I do. And you do. And Tony does. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t work for Darryl.”
“But you didn’t sleep with me or Tony.”
She leveled him with a look women learn from their mothers. He took a deep breath, obviously trying to bring himself under control. “Look, I know you want to do an old friend a favor. I would feel that way myself. But if you leak tips to him, he could publicize them, so our suspect disappears or moves on. Or even worse, he could go after the guy himself, which could get all sorts of people hurt and completely screw up the chances for successful prosecution.”
The allegation that she might do a favor for a friend didn’t bother her. The idea that she was too stupid to realize how much damage it could do made the embers in her eyes erupt into flame. “Do I look like a total idiot to you? You think I don’t know that?”
“I’m just saying—”
“I’m just saying that I feel real sorry for Darryl, and I feel especially sorry because I have a daughter myself who’s the same age. But if you think I would ever put my job on the line for an old boyfriend or any other man, then you’re a moron who has no business being a homicide detective.”
She stalked off in a swirl of coat and scarf.
Chapter 14
IT RELIEVED DAVID WHEN Evelyn refused to join them on the trail of Ophelia Ripetti, though Riley seemed to regard her as some sort of talisman. At her insistence they dropped her at the ME’s to work on Destiny Pierson’s clothing and continued southeast. At least Riley wouldn’t report their movements to the mayor’s office, David thought to himself.
The souring of their acquaintance hurt, surprisingly, but it couldn’t be helped. He had one last chance to resurrect his career and could not let some naïve ex-girlfriend of the city power structure stand in his way.
Though Evelyn never struck him as naïve. Kind, yes. Not naïve.
If Riley had noticed their tiff or the waves of frost that emanated from the backseat of the car, he said nothing. But David knew the older detective had caught the exchange. Riley noticed everything and stored it away in the jowls of his mind like a clairvoyant chipmunk.
“I caught up with that male nurse,” David said as a conversational gambit. “He seems to be more of a celebrity hound than a psycho. He didn’t ring any bells with me.”
“Mmm.”
“And little Ivy Ashworth is alive and well.”
“Mmm,” Riley growled as if he considered her continued existence a personal affront.
“They gave up Ophelia without argument.”
“Because they knew we’d find out anyway. Makes them look cooperative. They do that a lot.”
“They?”
“The mob.”
The more David learned about the murder, the less he felt it had anything to do with organized crime. This murder process required too much time, too much intimacy. It felt personal. But he kept his thoughts to himself, trying to learn from the older man. “You’ve been following his career for a while.”
Riley steered the car onto a gravel parking lot. The southeast office appeared to be little more than a shack, a dilapidated brick building hidden from the road by weeping willows. Crumbling steps led to a single door. A discreet sign read: Ashworth Construction.
“I worked Organized Crime for seven years before I came to Homicide.” Riley’s words came out slowly, as if he took no pride in them. “My partner, one smart son of a bitch named Edwards, dug away at a couple of soldiers until he found a cautious little protection ring going on. Ashworth was hardly old enough to drink, but he had, shall we say, an arrangement with our supervisor. Couldn’t prove it, of course.” He opened the car door and stepped out, crunching the gravel with more force than necessary.
David fell into step beside him. “What happened to your supervisor?”
“Nothing. Retired with full pension a few years after I left. Like I said, we couldn’t prove it.”
“Is Edwards still with Organized Crime?”
“He’s dead.”
David looked up, nearly tripping over the bottom step.
“At least I think so,” Riley amended. “We never found his body.” He jerked the door open and entered. David followed.
The inside of the Ashworth Construction office building hid its flaws with more success than the outside, but with even less sense of decor. Light gray walls surrounded wooden desks old enough to have served in the last world war, covered with papers, blueprints, and ashtrays. The air smelled of dampness, cigarettes, and vanilla candles. They heard a few soft footfalls as a man lumbered in. Jeans and a plaid flannel shirt barely covered a bulk that exceeded both detectives combined. His eyes were sharp and calm.
“I’m Murfield, the supervisor.” He obviously knew who they were, either because Marcus had called him or because he could spot a cop four blocks away on a rainy night.
“Mr. Ashworth sent us here,” Riley said, which produced no more response than their presence. He held out the photograph of Ophelia Ripetti. “Do you know this girl?”
Murfield took the photo in one massive hand and gazed at it, unsurprised. Marcus had definitely called. They could have skipped the funeral, but it would have made no difference. Phone lines were faster than Fords.
The large man studied the picture as if truly pissed off by what he saw there. “Yeah, that’s Lia.” He shook his head. “Poor kid. What happened to her?”
“She was murdered. What did she do here?”
“Bookkeeper. That’s her place there.” He pointed out one of the many desks, and made no objection when David crossed to it and sat down. All three men knew he could demand a search warrant, but Murfield chose not to waste the time. David started to search its contents methodically, almost gently, showing respect to the dead, hoping to soothe Murfield and impress Riley at the same time.
The man walked Riley through their current jobs, what accounts Ophelia would have worked on. There were a number of projects, including the plaza near the bridge where she had been found and the proposal for the new ME’s office. David found a condom, still wrapped, and Yahoo Maps! directions to the art museum.
“She have any conflicts with anyone here? Any office spats?” Riley went on.
Murfield’s eyes blazed, either at the inference or at the sorry son of a bitch who would kill a young woman. “No. Everyone liked her—a really sweet kid.”
“How sweet?”
“What do you mean? She was a nice kid and did her job. That’s all there is to say.”
“Did she have a boyfriend here?”
“She went out with some guy, but nobody I knew.”
David picked up another pile of forms. Apparently Ophelia took care of vendor accounts and payments, but the columns of numbers meant nothing to him. He’d need a forensic accountant to find any evidence of wrongdoing on her cluttered desk. Riley would thrill to examine Ashworth’s accounts, but they’d never get a warrant without a more compelling connection between Lia’s death and her work. And where did Destiny fit in?
“She express any dissatisfaction with her job?”
“No.”
“With her boss?”
“No.”
“With you?”
“I am the boss. She didn’t have any problems here. We wouldn’t have
let any harm come to her.”
The distinction wasn’t lost on Riley. “Who is we?”
“Well, you cops are supposed to protect people, ain’t you? How come there’s some nut running around killing little girls like Lia?” There would always be nuts killing little girls, his voice seemed to say, and he felt genuinely frustrated about it.
Lia Ripetti had only two personal items on her desk: a photograph of herself and a young man, taken on a balcony overlooking a raging ocean, and a shot glass from Los Alamos, New Mexico. David peered at the young man.
“So she never missed a day,” Riley said.
“Hardly ever.” His face contorted with thought. “Last week she stayed home sick.”
“Sick?”
“Food poisoning. We had a grand opening at the new wing of the South Side Mall. Damn caterer served rotten potato salad, sent a bunch of people to the hospital. Never touch the stuff myself. She felt really lousy for a few days, but came back on Thursday and Friday.”
“How’d she get this job?” Riley asked.
“She had bookkeeping experience, and Mr. Ashworth said to hire her because he knew her dad.”
“So Ashworth took an interest in Ophelia?”
“Lia. No one called her that Shakespeare name. I don’t think she ever met Mr. Ashworth. He just knew her dad. I got work to do, you got anything else?”
“And she didn’t stumble over any inconvenient figures, in the books she took care of for you?”
“I know what you think,” Murfield said, resolutely calm. “But I’m telling you, Lia was one of our family, and we wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.” His cheeks were flushed and he looked Riley in the eye, telegraphing the truth through his sincerity. “And when you find the pervert who did it, you bring him to me and I’ll make sure he don’t become no damn recidivist. You understand me?”
“I got it,” Riley said.
After Murfield gave them Lia’s home address, the two cops left and sat in the parking lot for several minutes waiting for the car to warm up; they had been inside for only ten minutes, but the temperature inside the car had fallen well below freezing, in direct violation of all physical laws.
“You believe him?” David asked.
“I don’t know. One thing you got to remember about these guys—they’re real good liars. They’ve had a lot of practice.”
“I don’t think he’s lying. Organized crime doesn’t kill people this way. Too flashy.”
To his surprise, Riley did not argue. “I know,” he sighed. “But we had no other leads and it gave me an excuse to yank Ashworth’s chain.”
“Yeah.”
“On the other hand—”
“What?”
“Ashworth knew her.”
Lia Ripetti had lived in an apartment building in the suburb of Solon that matched her office and, they learned, her life: a simple, dependable structure that provided security and comfort. The superintendent collected their search warrant and let them into her apartment at the end of the third-floor hallway without comment, as if he had long ago learned not to ask questions when he didn’t really want to know the answers. The one-bedroom suite with an eat-in kitchen had been decorated in early American garage sale but not without a whimsical charm. Colors and textures fought for prominence; perhaps Lia craved stimulation from her home that she wasn’t getting from her life or wanted to express herself through her choices. Did the killer come here to get her? Did she let him in?
David noticed the delicately stitched quilt over the sofa, the few matching pieces of elegant bone china dinnerware, and the soft peach towel hanging from the bathroom rack. Lia had chosen her luxuries carefully, and they were things to touch, to use, not items just to look at.
Interesting, but it didn’t point him to a killer. He found himself wishing Evelyn had come along. She endangered his focus, with her crystal eyes that might see through him, but he needed her help. Damn.
The heat in the apartment worked a little too well, enough that the two detectives removed their coats after a few minutes, and then their jackets. A few photographs were tucked in a drawer, but only of Lia herself. Her address book did not indicate a social butterfly. While David glanced over her extensive collection of books, he heard a sound at the open door. A hefty young man in baggy jeans, his face cluttered with freckles and shaggy red tendrils, took one horrified look at the two cops and bolted down the hall.
“Hey!” David followed. Riley heard him and emerged from the bedroom at a run. They pounded down the hallway and David caught up with the man just as he reached the stairwell. They exploded through the fire door, David on the young man’s back. His chin hit the cracked linoleum with a noise like a pistol shot.
“Shouldn’t wear such long pants,” David said as he cuffed him. “They slow you down. Come on, get up.”
“What’s this guy’s story?” Riley asked.
“I don’t know, but he knows Lia. His picture is on her desk at work.”
“The plot thickens.”
Their prisoner let out a muffled roar. When David pushed him into an armchair in the dead girl’s apartment, he saw the guy’s chin beginning to purple and tears running down his cheeks, intensifying the freckles. Oh, boy, David thought. Here it comes. Make my day and confess, son. We’ll both feel better. Especially me.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” The kid’s voice reverberated from deep within his oversize body.
“What?”
“Lia. She’s dead. That’s why you guys are here, isn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?” Riley said cautiously.
“Why else would you be here?” he asked, hopeless and sarcastic. “The minute the super told me cops were in her apartment I knew something had to be really wrong.”
David and Riley exchanged a look. David dug the photograph out of his coat, now draped over the sofa. “What’s your name?”
“Mason Durling.”
“Well, Mr. Durling, I’m sorry to have to ask you this”—he held out the photo of the woman they had already identified and watched carefully for Durling’s reaction—“but is this Lia Ripetti?”
The man didn’t so much weep as howl. He stomped his feet and contorted his body, as much as he could with his hands locked behind him, then descended into a wave of sobs. David exchanged another glance with his partner and took a deep breath to wash away the sharp stab of disappointment. The kid was either innocent or a complete wack job.
When the noise began to subside, David tried again. “Mason. Mr. Durling. Are you okay?”
“No. No, I’m not okay! How can Lia be—” He burst into another round of sobs.
“Mason, we need to talk to you. How about if I take off the handcuffs and get you some ice for your chin? Okay? Then can we talk?”
With a visible shudder, the redhead made an effort to control himself. He nodded, lips compressed.
“Okay, I’m going to take the cuffs off. You need to stay right where you are, you understand me? I’m sorry you’re upset, but we need to talk to you, and we are both armed police officers, you understand?”
“I understand.”
He gave no resistance as David unlocked the handcuffs, and meekly accepted a bag of ice wrapped in a kitchen towel. David sat opposite him and wiped sweat from his cheeks. These kinds of calisthenics wouldn’t have bothered him in his younger days. Riley stood, an armed barrier between Durling and the door.
David opened his mouth, but Durling interrupted. “Who killed her?”
“What makes you think someone killed her?”
“Come on!” he exploded in frustration. “You wouldn’t be searching her apartment if she died in a car wreck. Who killed her?”
“We don’t know.”
Over the ice bag, Durling gave him a look of utter disgust. David tried not to take it personally. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. First of all, why did you run away just now?”
Disgust turned back to sadness. “Because I knew when I saw you what
you were going to tell me. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to know.” He shook his head, rough bangs skirting across his forehead. “I just didn’t want to know.”
David had his doubts about this explanation, but went on. “What is your relationship to Ophelia Ripetti?”
“Lia. She’s my girlfriend. We’ve been going out for about four months now. I planned to maybe propose at Christmas. I was thinking about it, anyway.” Again the shake. “I should have thought faster.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Friday. We had dinner here, just pizza. Then I went back to my place about ten. I live downstairs, that’s how we met.”
“Kind of early for a Friday night.”
“I work Saturday. And Lia was leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“On vacation.”
“There’s a suitcase on her bed,” Riley said.
“She was going to Atlantic City for the weekend. She liked it there.”
“Without you?” David asked.
“I just started a new job, I don’t have any vacation time. It didn’t bother Lia to do things alone. She’s had to since her folks died in a fire.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“Nobody. Just one aunt who’s dead now, too. She didn’t have anybody in the world,” Durling said. His face, perched on its ice pillow, looked almost objective about Lia’s sad history. “That’s why it was so important for her to have me, man.”
“She had Mr. Ashworth,” Riley said.
“Who?”
“Her boss, a friend of her parents?” David prodded. “He got her hired at his firm because of it. Mario Ashworth.”
“I know that’s the name of the place she works at, but she never mentioned him.”
“She must have been only seventeen when she started there.”
Durling shrugged. “I guess. She had to work, her parents didn’t leave much. She lived with an aunt for a while after it happened, but got her own place as soon as she could.”
“How did she feel about her job?”
He shrugged again impatiently. “It paid the bills. She got along with everyone there. What’s that got to do with who killed her?”
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