by Paul Bishop
“Where's Colby?” she asked.
“In the jail doing the paperwork on the glass-throwing ADW suspect.”
At the next desk, Monk hung up the phone. Hatch and Fey looked over at him expectantly.
“The victim is on the way to sign-off.”
Hatch told him to run the sign-off past the CA for a formal reject.
“Why?” Monk asked.
“You know all domestic violence cases need formal rejects,” Hatch said.
“Domestic violence cases, sure. But this is two guys living together.”
“Are they roommates or lovers?”
“Lovers apparently.”
“Then it's domestic violence and needs a formal reject. This is the age of nondiscrimination.”
Monk didn't argue. He looked at Fey. “Cahill wants to see you as soon as you come in.”
Fey rolled her eyes. “Stand by, ladies,” she said. “Here comes the pressure.” She took a gulp of coffee and headed toward the lieutenant's office.
Cahill's door was open. Fey stepped through, rapping twice on the doorjamb. At one end of the large office was a round conference table with several chairs. At the other end, Cahill sat behind a large desk. Mementos of the Marine Corps decorated the walls along with a blowup of Cahill and three police academy classmates. The office seemed larger than it was due to the wall of mini-blinded windows looking out to the squad bay.
“You wanted to see me?” Fey asked.
Cahill looked up from his desk.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” he said.
Fey felt a chill run through her. Cahill was not his normal self.
Fey looked at her watch. It was eight-fifteen. She didn't usually start work till eight-thirty. She sat down in the chair in front of Cahill's desk.
“What are you complaining about, Mike?” she asked. “I was here until ten o'clock last night.”
“Colby spent the night here. Caught a couple of hours sleep in the cot room and was back on the job.”
“Good for him,” Fey said. She could see Colby making a big production out of his sacrifice.
“This case is close to getting out of hand. We can't afford another unsolved.”
“Who said this case is an unsolved? We've been on it less than twenty-four hours.”
“Let me put it another way,” Cahill interrupted. “You can't afford another unsolved.”
“What's going on?” Fey was perplexed by Cahill's change in attitude. “First you act like you're behind me all the way. Now you're making veiled threats.”
Cahill hung his head wearily. “There's backlash from the brass,” he said quietly. “The chief is playing smile and grovel with the mayor and the police commission. They're screaming about crime as usual. Our stats are making the big chief come down on our bureau little chief. Stuff is rolling downhill from there. They don't care why we have four unsolveds in a row. They want cases cleared.”
“Should I make them all suicides?”
“If you can.”
“Mike!”
Cahill put up his hand to stop further outburst. “I know you're doing your best. I believe you're the right cop for our homicide unit. However, the department has become more political than ever. None of us have protection. I don't want to go back to patrol as a morning watch lieutenant. Neither of us can afford to have another unsolved.”
“We may have a break on the Bradshaw case.”
“Colby filled me in,” Cahill interrupted.
I bet he did, Fey fumed.
“But,” Cahill continued, “it isn't going to be enough if we get stuck with another whodunit.”
“You're the boss,” Fey said. All the stress Yank had helped her relieve was back on her shoulders. “We'll work this until we break it.” She stood to walk out.
“One more thing,” Cahill said, stopping her.
“Yes?”
“Colby is doing a good job. You need to give him some room. He might surprise you and catch a killer for us.”
“Pardon me, Mike,” Fey said evenly. “I don't have time for anymore of this crap.”
Cahill looked like he'd been slapped.
“If you'll excuse me,” Fey said in the same even tone, “I've got crime to fight.” She turned and walked out of the office.
Chapter 12
The look on Fey's face when she blew past her desk, grabbing her purse as she went, almost made Vance Hatcher dive for cover. Neither he nor Monk said a word as Fey stormed by them, nor did they look up from their desks until she was out of the squad bay.
“She is pissed-off,” Monk said.
“Glad Colby wasn't up here,” Hatch said. “One word out of him would have set her off like an A-bomb.”
Monk looked at the rear exit from the squad bay through which Fey had disappeared. “So much repressed rage makes you understand why they used to name hurricanes after women.”
“Amen, partner.”
Leaving the squad room, Fey walked down a short corridor with bathrooms on one side and the irony of the vice unit's office on the other. At the end of the corridor was a heavy door giving access to a small roof area extending over the slightly larger first floor. The station's generators were gathered together in the center of the area surrounded by a ridiculously small running track.
Fey pulled the door open with a vengeance, stepped through, and slammed it behind her. On the roof, the generators were working noisily. So angry she was having trouble getting her breath, Fey fumbled in her purse for a battered packet of cigarettes and a chewed-up pack of matches. This time, she didn't hesitate. Old habits die hard, and all reformed smokers have an emergency stash. She tore off the pack’s cellophane wrapper as if the secret of life was inside.
Her hands shook. She had to use three matches before she got the tip of the cigarette glowing. She inhaled and felt the orgasmic pleasure of nicotine flushing through her system. She took a second drag, but the smoke caught in her throat and she began to cough. She tried to control it, but eventually doubled over with the hacking.
The purse, which was slung over her left shoulder, slipped and dropped to the rooftop. Still hacking, she threw the cigarette away as if casting out a demon. The pack was still in her left hand, squeezed into an unusable squish.
When she recovered her breath, she switched the pack into her right hand. She wound up like a pitcher to throw the hated thing over low wall at the edge of the roof. Letting it fly, she watched it fall short. Fey's chin dropped to her chest. Throwing was another thing they never taught girls.
After a few seconds, she walked over, picked up the pack, and calmly dropped it over the low wall. She hoped somebody important was walking below. She looked over. No such luck.
Taking a deep breath, she looked across the street at the police garage and on to the courthouses contained in the next block.
I'm forty-three years old, she thought, and I still let things get to me as if I were a twelve-year-old who'd been told she couldn't shave her legs. When am I going to grow up? Come on, girl, get a grip. You know how the game is played. You can't take your ball and go home. There are crimes to solve.
She mentally shook herself and turned to go back inside.
Hatcher was the first to see Fey walk back into the squad bay.
“Stand by,” he said quietly to Monk.
“Is she still mad?”
“She hasn't sprouted horns or a tail.”
Fey tossed her purse onto her desk with a crash. It landed next to several Express Mail envelopes. Monk and Hatch looked at her.
She shrugged. “I lost it. Sue me.”
“It happens to all of us,” Hatch said.
“You have an excuse,” Fey said.
“I do?”
“You're a male.”
Monk laughed, and the tension was broken.
Fey smiled at the two detectives. “Let me get another cup of caffeine.” she said. “Then we'll get down to business.”
In the coffee room, she filled her
cup with the cinnamon coffee some brave soul had brewed. She looked at a group of candid photos pinned to the bulletin board. They had been taken at a promotion party a week before.
Various rude comic captions had been added. There was one of Mike Cahill caught looking down the scooped neckline of a cocktail waitress. The caption read, Dr. Mike checks for plastic surgery scars.
Another photo showed a drunken Vance Hatcher with his arm around the newly promoted male detective. A comic balloon pointing to Hatch read, Now you're a real detective, you’re part of the Tee-Hee Club. Meetings are twice weekly in the locker room.
There was also a group photo of Fey and three female detectives squished around a table to get in the picture. The anonymous caption read, The Crack Squad.
Fey shook her head, but she didn't make any move to take it down. There would be those who found it funny, but if the caption was taken down, something worse would be put in its place.
There was also photo of Colby sitting alone at a table. The camera had captured a fleeting look of confused vulnerability on his face. Fey took out a black felt pen and added the words, So much time. So few friends.
Turnabout was fair play.
Colby was back at his desk next to Monk's when Fey returned. He had his head down finishing a 5.10 form for the felony package of the wife beater booked overnight.
“Did the victim turn up?” Fey asked.
“She’s signing off the report now. I'll run the paperwork by the CA and we'll have the case out of our hair.”
“Until the next time he hits her.”
Colby shrugged. “Or she slips a knife between his ribs.”
Grunting her agreement, Fey sat down and pulled over the stack of Express Mail envelopes. She took her glasses out of her purse, slipping them into place.
“These are the reports from San Francisco on the Miriam Cordell case,” she said, seeing the contents of the first envelope.
Colby stood up and walked behind Fey, looking over her shoulder.
“Easy, boy,” Fey said, but without rancor. “I know you're anxious, but my butt is riding on this caper. I'll pass these over when I finish reading.”
For a second, Colby looked for a challenge in Fey's words. Not finding any, he returned to his desk. Before sitting down, he carefully adjusted the fabric of his dark okra-colored slacks so the knees wouldn't bag.
Fey watched the ritual, but bit back a sharp-tongued comment. She needed Colby working with her, not against her.
Fey dug into the SFPD reports. Contained within the dry jargon and unusual abbreviations—which made up the mass of police and court narratives—was the story of terrific police work resulting in a successful conviction in a tough, fifty-fifty, win-or-lose court case.
By all appearances, Isaac Cordell had been a successful businessman who enjoyed the fruits of his labors to the fullest. At thirty years old, he owned a string of furniture stores with his partner, Adam Roark. He had a home along the shore of wealthy Sausalito—the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. He drove a new Cadillac, and docked a thirty-eight-foot Bayliner with twin diesels at the local marina.
He also had a beautiful wife—Miriam Cordell née Curtis.
However, all wasn't bliss and roses for the lucky couple. A year after they were married, Miriam—newly anointed to the rich and bored—was arrested for shoplifting. Two years after they were married, Isaac, with his business floundering, wrapped his wife in an anchor chain and threw her off their boat in a bid for the million-dollar insurance policy he'd taken out in her name.
The arson report attached to the case dealt with the burning down of one of Cordell's furniture stores prior to the murder. It had been a clear-cut arson job. The insurance company's refusal to pay off forced Cordell to pursue more desperate measures to raise capital. Measures like murdering his wife.
The detectives had done a great job putting the case together, but their evidence was mostly circumstantial—the body was never recovered from the bottom of San Francisco Bay. Nevertheless, Isaac Cordell was quickly found guilty and shipped off to prison for the murder of his wife. The case set a number of legal precedents, but these soon became nothing more than discussion points or trick questions to be used by lazy law school professors.
Case closed.
Fey was reading through the reports again when the Homicide Unit's direct phone line rang. She scooped it up a split second before Colby could get to it.
“West Los Angeles Homicide, Croaker.”
The voice on the wire was tinged with a soft Scottish burr.
“This is Card MacGregor. I'm a retired detective from SFPD. I have a message here to call a Detective Colby. Seems he doesn't have enough work down there, so he's dug up one of my old bodies.”
“This is Fey Croaker. I head our divisional Homicide Unit. Colby works for me.” From the corner of her eye, Fey caught Colby’s look of thinly veiled animosity. “Hold on,” she said to MacGregor. “Let me get him on the line.”
She covered the phone's mouthpiece with one hand and gestured at Colby with the other. “Pick up the phone,” she told him. “It's Card MacGregor, the detective who handled the Cordell case in San Francisco.” Fey figured having Colby listen in was easier than repeating everything later.
Colby's fist swallowed the receiver of his extension. He punched himself into the line with the forefinger.
“I'm on board,” Colby said.
“Good,” MacGregor said.
“We understand you retired a couple of years ago,” Fey said.
“From the department,” MacGregor told her. “But I was still too young to quit working altogether. I got a cushy job freelancing for insurance companies.”
“How's the pay?”
“Keeps the wolf from the door,” MacGregor told her. “What's all this nonsense about one of my old homicide victims being found dead again?”
“Do you remember a case from ten years ago—Isaac Cordell?” Fey asked.
“Sure,” MacGregor said. “It caused a stir because it was the first time anyone in this jurisdiction had been convicted of murder without the body being recovered.”
“It seems the reason your body was never recovered was because the victim wasn’t dead.”
“Come again...”
“If fingerprints are to be believed,” Fey explained, “your victim, Miriam Cordell, survived her ordeal at sea only to be murdered again, ten years later, down here in our neck of the woods. This time under the name Miranda Goodwinter.”
A rusty chuckle rumbled down the phone lines. “Crazy,” MacGregor said. “I've had nightmares about the case ever since it went down. We put it all together, but it never did set easy with me. I knew something wasn’t right.”
“I've skimmed the official reports,” Fey said. “Can you add the color commentary?”
“It was a strange case from the beginning,” MacGregor said. “The harbor police had original jurisdiction because the murder occurred within the bay. If you'll excuse the pun, they quickly found themselves out of their depth and asked us to take over.”
“You didn't have a problem?”
“Not really. The harbor police do a good job keeping weekend boaters in line, chasing speeders, and investigating illegal dumping, but murder is out of their league. Since Cordell’s boat was berthed in Sausalito there was some discussion if the Marin County Sheriff's Office or SFPD was going to handle the case, but the crime took place on the city side of the bay, so we got stuck with it.”
“Handling a floating crime scene must have been a new experience,” Fey said.
“It definitely had its challenges,” MacGregor agreed, in the happy voice of a grandfather about to tell a bedtime story. “The boat was a beauty called The Missy, after the owner's mother. Not his wife or a lover, his mother.”
“The owner was Isaac Cordell?”
“Yeah. A strange bird. Cordell was the kind of guy who knew how to spend money, but had no idea how to make it.”
“Wh
at about his chain of furniture stores?” Colby asked.
“His old man, Sam Cordell, started the stores and made them successful,” MacGregor said. It was clear he didn't like being interrupted. Fey shot Colby a glance with shut up written all over it.
“Isaac had no business sense,” MacGregor continued. “He took over the stores when he was twenty-five going on sixteen. There were three Cordell's Furniture stores in the Bay area. Within two years, he was on the brink of bankruptcy. Had to take on a partner, I think his name was Roark.”
“Did the infusion of cash help?” Fey prompted.
“For a while. Roark helped to run things, but Isaac was still the majority shareholder. Problems started again a year later when Isaac decided to get himself hitched to an older woman.”
“How much older?”
“There was really nothing in it. Isaac was twenty-eight and Miriam was thirty-three. But when we were investigating the case, a lot of people were casting aspersions on her for being a cradle robber.”
“Why?”
Fey could almost see MacGregor's shrug over the phone line.
“Not sure, never having met the woman,” the retired detective said. “I think it was down to the fact she was viewed as a gold digger. Isaac was considered the most eligible bachelor in the area. He didn't appear to be gay. He had money in the bank. A lot of mothers would have liked to see their daughters settle him down. However, Isaac was tied tight to his mother's apron strings. She was a demanding old bitch, who was probably the main reason behind Sam Cordell jumping into an early grave.”
“She’s the Missy for whom who Cordell named his boat?”
“The same. Missy had less money sense than Isaac, and no interest in running the business. Trying to keep her happy was probably why Isaac had so many business problems when he took over from his father.
“Missy, however, stuck around long enough to suck all the profits out of the business before she stroked out. Low and behold there Miriam was, out of nowhere, to sweep Isaac off his feet and give him another female anchor to cling on. There was a short courtship, a civil ceremony, then she settled in to spend any of the money Missy had left behind. There were a lot of noses out of joint.”