Till Death - Mark Kane Mysteries - Book Four: A Private Investigator Crime Series of Murder, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Stories...with a dash of Romance. A Murder, Mystery & Suspense Thriller

by John Hemmings

  Chapter Twelve

  Partners in Crime

  The morning was going to be sunny and bright, according to the guy on the radio, and I had two things uppermost in my mind as I sat at the dining table and sipped my first coffee of the day. The cold case files were still on the dining table and I went through the index to try to get some inspiration. It was six thirty in the morning and Lucy would be at least an hour away from consciousness. Unlike me she wasn’t a naturally early riser. In spite of the considerable amount of paperwork generated by the inquiry the key facts could be summarized succinctly.

  The place of death had been a single room apartment which was rented in the name of the dead man. He’d lived there for little more than a month. A forensic examination of the scene had found no trace of any fingerprints, including those of the deceased. A number of items had been seized for forensic examination and tested for DNA. These included a cloth found in the trash can which was otherwise empty. There was a memo postulating the possibility that it was the cloth used to wipe the place clean of prints, but that was merely speculation. In any event it hadn’t been possible to extract a full DNA profile from the cloth, although it wasn’t from the deceased because the DNA came from a female. Two promising sources of DNA that had been profiled came from the neck of two bottles of beer that were on the kitchen counter. One was empty of beer, the other was partly consumed. The bottles had apparently been wiped clean of prints, or perhaps they’d been handled by somebody wearing gloves, but the necks of both bottles had male DNA. The police lab was only able to get a partial profile from one of the bottles and they couldn’t exclude the possibility that it was from the deceased, but the deceased was excluded as a possible donor from the swab taken from the other bottle. DNA from a female donor was found in several parts of the premises: on light switches, on the flush handle of the toilet and on the handle of a toothbrush in the bathroom. It was also extracted from the sheets that were on the bed, and strands of female hair found in various parts of the premises, including the sheets.

  From this information it seemed to me that the deceased had a girlfriend or at least had a woman friend in the apartment, and apparently in his bed too. No woman had yet been identified from the DNA and, despite publicity and quite extensive local inquiries, no woman had been identified as a possible source of the DNA. It had, however, been concluded that the extent of contamination of the DNA from this female suggested she must have spent quite a bit of time in the apartment and had probably either cohabited with the deceased or at least been a frequent visitor to the premises. The presence of the beer bottles had led police investigators to conclude that they’d probably been consumed recently – perhaps at the time of the homicide or during the subsequent clean-up process. But in spite of the DNA there were no traces of fingerprints anywhere. Obviously DNA from the deceased had been found in various parts of the premises as well.

  The neighbors had all been interviewed shortly after the finding of the deceased. The body had been discovered within about twenty-four to forty-eight hours of the death according to a combination of the medical examiner’s findings and information from the neighbors concerning the last sightings of the deceased. He’d been found when he failed to attend a meeting with his probation officer.

  At seven-thirty I called Lance Calley. He didn’t pick up and I left a message. I told him it was urgent. Lucy had invited me to breakfast because she knew I wouldn’t bother otherwise. It was eight fifteen when I knocked at her door and eight seventeen when she opened it. It may have been bright and sunny but it was still cold.

  “What took you so long? I’m freezing out here.”

  “Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said, as I walked in and shut the door behind me. “Make yourself useful and scramble some eggs.”

  Over breakfast I told Lucy that I was going to try and meet up with Calley.

  “I’ve left him a message. I’ll see him somewhere downtown. There’s no need for you to come – in fact it’ll be better if I go by myself. You drive over to Don’s place and I’ll see you there at about eleven.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Why are you seeing Calley – it’ll be too early to learn much yet, won’t it?”

  “I’m going to tell him about the cold case. I want the fingerprint and DNA analysis hurried up from the new investigation. Lance will think it’s Christmas all over again.”

  “How will he explain the possible link between the two cases? Was he involved in the cold case investigation?”

  “No. But he’s about to find out that he’s the sort of guy who takes an interest in these matters, although as a matter of fact nothing could be further from the truth. As far as Lance is concerned the sooner an investigation that’s apparently going nowhere is put to bed the better it is. But I’ve invented a new Lance Calley, as I shall be explaining to him. The new Calley is a detective who eats, sleeps and lives his job. He’s going to suspect a possible link between the two cases.”

  “Does he know about his reincarnation yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “So you’re going to hand him everything on a plate?”

  “Oh I shall get some credit too if it turns out the cases are linked.”

  “Go on then, tell me how?” Lucy said, as she popped the last piece of toast and scrambled egg into her mouth.

  “Leave it to me,” I said, tapping the side of my nose with my forefinger.

  *

  Lance was at Duke’s before me. Duke’s is a bar downtown favored by off-duty cops; those of them who are regular drinkers that is, which is most of them. Lance was already nursing a bottle of beer in his hand although it was only ten o’clock.

  “Hi Lance,” I said, as I slipped into the booth opposite him. “How’s it going?”

  “Let’s cut the small talk and get down to business,” he said. He called over the waitress. “Another one of these, honey. You want one?” he said to me. I nodded and the waitress disappeared. Lance is a real charmer.

  “Lance,” I said, “you’re supposed to say to me: “Pretty busy at the moment – new case over in South Boston. Guy found dead in the bathtub. No obvious cause of death, and nothing found to enable us to identify him yet.”

  Calley looked at me as if I was crazy.

  “Why would I tell you something you know about already?” he said. “Why don’t you get to the point? I’ve got better things to do than sit here chewing the fat with you.”

  I doubted that. I sighed heavily. “Okay, it’s like this,” I said, as the waitress returned with a couple of Budweiser’s. “I happen to be working on a cold case file from the department at the moment. In my view there are striking similarities between that case and the one you got an anonymous tip about on Wednesday.” I stressed the word anonymous, opening my eyes a bit wider and nodding to see that he was getting the picture. He started nodding back to me, which was encouraging.

  “So over a friendly chat you tell me about this puzzling new case you’re investigating and I say, “That’s interesting – I’m working on a case at the moment that sounds curiously similar.” And you say, “What case is that then?” And then I tell you – which is what I’m about to do now.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “I get it. I think.”

  I took along draw from my bottle and put it back on the table.

  “It strikes me that there are some curious features about the South Boston homicide,” I said.

  “If it was a homicide.”

  I looked at Lance patiently. “The guy was dead in a bathtub full of water. There was a broken whiskey glass on the floor next to the bath and a lot of water on the floor. Seems like there’d been a struggle in there, but there were no apparent marks on the body. It looks like somebody held his head under the water until he drowned. None of his clothing or other personal items were in the apartment, except for what he was wearing before he got into the tub. Nothing was in the pockets of those clothes and none of the usual items were anywhere to b
e found – ID, driver’s license, keys, cell phone, money, credit cards – you get the picture? Whoever topped the guy took all his stuff with them.”

  “For a guy who wasn’t there you know a hell of a lot about the case,” he said, grinning at me. “Yeah, we figured that much already,” he said, “but like you say we assume he drowned but we don’t know for sure how he died yet.”

  “The cold case I’m working on happened seven years ago in South End. The circumstances of the death were similar. A dead guy found in a bathtub with no visible marks or injuries. Whoever killed the cold case guy did a pretty thorough clean-up afterward, but nobody can clean everything. There’s a good deal of profiled DNA which didn’t belong to the guy in the tub. There were no leads and the investigation petered out. The cause of death was never determined, other than it was sudden and instantaneous.”

  “Hmm,” Calley said. I had his full attention now. I knew that because he hadn’t taken a swig from his bottle for over a minute.

  “So,” I said, “you’re going to ask your boss to ask me to let you see the cold case files. I’ll expect the request to come from your side. I’ll tell them that I’d be happy to go over the files with you if you think it would be helpful. It’s up to you to make the internal request.”

  Calley took a hit from his bottle again and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “What’s your angle on this, Kane? You didn’t mess about with the scene did you – remove anything from the premises?”

  “I wasn’t there, Lance, remember? I don’t know anything about the case. Look I’m not just doing this out of fondness for you, okay. I want to know if there’s a link too. I want to know who the victim is and I want to know how he died, and who else’s prints have been picked up. I want to know if any DNA was recovered and, if so, I want it cross-matched with the DNA from the other case. Since I’m dealing with the cold case you’ll be able to share that information with me legitimately. And if there’s a link – and especially if the link assists in solving either of these homicides − you’ll be eyeing a sergeant’s insignia I shouldn’t wonder; you know those elusive little inverted chevrons.”

  Lance blew out his cheeks and exhaled loudly. He sat back, revealing a gut that’d grown several inches since our last meeting.

  “So we’d be working together as a team. That’ll be one for the books.”

  “We’ll be exchanging information with the full backing of the department. You could come out of it covered in glory. And anyway, if it turns out there’s no link after all, you’ll still be commended for your initiative.”

  Lance was leaning back in his seat. He placed his hands, palms down, on the edge of the table in front of him and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, dreamily, “for my initiative.”

  “So let’s not waste any more time. I’ll wait until I get a call from the department authorizing me to discuss the cold case with you. Your job is to get the investigation moving as quickly as possible your end, okay?”

  “I’ll get on it right away. And…”

  “There’s no need to say thanks, Lance, it’d bring tears to my eyes.”

  I got up and left the bar, leaving him there daydreaming about those chevrons.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Starbucks

  By eleven fifteen in the morning I was parked near The Prestige with a clear view of the parking garage exit. Lucy was parked a little way behind me. Shortly before eleven thirty the grill started to open and I watched as Don drove out, turned right and disappeared from view. I checked the laptop. The signal was fine. Less than five minutes after Don had left the grill started to rise again. As it reached its zenith Lisa’s car popped through the opening and headed in the same direction as Don’s car. Lucy and I set off in convoy. She was to keep directly behind me. If she lost me we’d stay in contact by phone.

  After a while it was clear we weren’t headed to South Boston. Instead Lisa drove to the South End, and when we reached West Brookline she slowed, obviously looking for a parking spot. I called to Lucy, who was immediately behind me. “As soon as she parks I need you to follow her, even if you have to stop in a tow zone. We can’t afford to let her out of our sight.”

  Lisa found a meter and I could see a spot free a few hundred feet away on the other side of the street. I headed on down there, but some guy eased into it before I got there. I drove on down the street until I found another free spot. It was about a quarter of a mile from where I’d seen Lisa park. I parked up and immediately called Lucy. She didn’t answer, but a few seconds later I got a message from her. They were in Starbucks on Tremont. I used the GPS to locate it. I moved out of the parking space again and headed in the direction of Starbucks. I needed to find a spot nearby. After a few minutes I found a meter and pulled over. I walked over the street to Starbucks where I could see both Lucy and Lisa. Lisa was seated in an armchair at a low table by the window. There was an empty seat opposite her but all the other seats in the place were occupied. Lucy was in the line but keeping an eye on Lisa at the same time. It took about five minutes for Lucy to get whatever it was that she’d ordered. In the meantime, the chair opposite Lisa remained empty. A couple of times someone approached Lisa and apparently asked if they could sit there. She said something and they walked away, so she’d obviously told them she was waiting for someone. I decided to remain outside. It was crowded in there and there was no way either of us was going to be able to get close enough to Lisa to hear any conversation. Lucy could see me on the sidewalk outside.

  Lisa kept looking at her wristwatch and looking around her. After another five minutes or so her date showed up − the dead guy’s former companion walked into the shop. She walked over and sat down opposite Lisa. Neither of them said anything as far as I could tell. The woman produced a manila envelope from her purse and handed it to Lisa. The envelope was apparently not sealed and Lisa opened the flap and peered inside. She partially extracted some sheets of paper from the envelope, looked at them briefly, and then pushed them back inside. She put the envelope in the pocket of the dark green woolen coat she was wearing. She got up and walked out the door without a backward glance.

  I called Lucy. “I want you to follow Lisa. I’m going to follow our mystery woman when she comes out. Only call me if it’s something urgent.” Lucy left and started after Lisa.

  Almost immediately afterwards the woman got up and headed for the door. She set off down the street and I followed her. She occasionally stopped and pretended to be tying her shoe lace or waiting for someone or whatever. She was apparently checking to see if she was being followed. If she’d been tailed by a hack she’d probably have spotted him, but I’ve been in the game too long. I knew all the tricks of the trade to make myself invisible to her. Luckily the streets were quite crowded, which helped. After walking for about half a mile she stopped outside an apartment block. She looked around her as I walked straight on by and turned to cross the street. I saw her disappear into the apartment block. I didn’t follow her in there. I had a photograph of her – that should be enough. I waited on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t simply a diversion. After more than thirty minutes I was fairly sure that she’d led me to her home, or at least to the building where her home was.

  I called Tony Scipio on his cell phone; fortunately, he wasn’t busy.

  “Nothing much doing since Christmas, boss,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ve got something for you now.” I told him where I was. “How long will it take you to get here?” I asked.

  “I’m over the other side of town,” he said. “Maybe forty-five minutes; depends on the traffic.”

  “You won’t need any wheels,” I said, “so maybe you can get here a bit quicker.”

  “Okay boss. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up.

  Tony arrived just over half an hour later. We met in a coffee shop diagonally opposite the apartment building. I took out a picture of the wo
man that I’d downloaded and printed from Lucy’s phone and handed it to him.

  “I believe this woman lives in the apartment block across the street,” I said. “Of course it’s possible that she’s just visiting someone, but she’s been in there for more than an hour now. I want you to watch for her. Give it another hour or so. If she comes out I want her tailed. But the main purpose of the exercise is to find out which apartment she’s in.”

  I took a hundred bucks out of my wallet in twenties and handed it to him.

  “This should be enough to find out,” I said. “I need to get in there as soon as possible.”

  “Okay,” said Tony. “I understand. I’ll keep in touch. You gonna be in your office for the rest of the day?”

  “No,” I said. “I quit the office. It’s a long story. But I’ll stay in the city. Call me as soon as you have anything good to tell me.”

  I walked back to the Chevy and climbed in. I fired the engine and called Lucy.

  “I followed her back home,” Lucy said. “She stopped on the way and I think she disposed of the envelope and whatever was inside it,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Okay, you may as well go home,” I said. “I’m going to stick around down here for a bit. I think I know where the woman lives, but not the apartment number. I’ve got Tony watching the building and I want to be close by when he finds out − if he finds out. I’ll see you later – but I don’t know how much later.”

  I found a steak restaurant nearby and ordered some lunch. I sat and ruminated while I ate. I drank a beer, but only one. I ordered coffee. I suspected I was in for a long wait, but fortunately I had a paperback in my coat pocket. I always carried a book with me in case I needed to kill time. It was a collection of short stories by Somerset Maugham. I flipped to the back. There were three hundred and twenty pages of fairly small print. That should keep me busy for a while. By three-thirty I was the last remaining customer and on my third cup of coffee. I called out to the waiter: