PrivateSector sd-4

by Brian Haig

  So we studied each other a moment. She was smartly dressed in a red pantsuit, no makeup, no jewelry-to include, I idly noticed, no wedding or engagement bands. I could detect no physical resemblance between her and Lisa, excluding their sizes, and the not inconsequential fact that both were stunners, with all the requisite plumbing, bumps, and protuberances associated with their chromosome. It was salt and pepper, however-one blond and fair, the other raven-haired and darkly gorgeous. Plus, Lisa, as I mentioned, had the most sympathetic eyes I ever saw. Janet’s were more… intolerant.

  She awarded me what might be labeled a wan smile and said, “Thanks for joining me. I was brusque this morning, and I apologize. I was.. . upset.”

  “Perfectly understandable.”

  “It was very kind of you to fly up and tell us personally. Did you ask to do that?”

  “I asked.”

  Her eyes strayed around the restaurant, and then back to me. “How long did you know Lisa?”

  “A few years. We did an investigation together in Kosovo. Afterward, we tilted in court a number of times.”

  “That must have been interesting.”

  “It was. I got my ass kicked. Each time… every time.”

  She chuckled. “What was she like in court?”

  “Devious, brilliant, and ruthless. She had a knack for coming up with the most wildassed defenses and making them stick.”

  “She was good, then?”

  “No. She was the best.”

  She stared into her drink and seemed to contemplate, I don’t know

  … something. For some reason she reminded me of Lisa. I had to think about it before I put my finger on it-it was that same throaty, edgy voice I previously mentioned. Similarities between the living and the dead can be eerie. Also, they can cause you to transfer a false sense of familiarity and affection. This can be misleading and, in the wrong circumstances, dangerous.

  Eventually she said, “We’re not certain about Arlington National Cemetery. Her family and friends are in Boston.”

  “I understand. Military honors come either way, but consider Arlington. The Army’s Old Guard puts on a great show, it’s a lovely setting, and she’ll be in the best of company.”

  She replied politely, “You make a good argument. We’ll think about it.”

  We then lapsed into a moment of friendly silence. We had gotten past the morning’s rudeness, established that Lisa’s death was emotionally affecting for us both, and some kind of unspoken bond had been forged. Miss Morrow was very deft at moving things along, I noted.

  So we slowly drank our drinks and chatted amiably for a few more minutes. Nothing deep or really relevant; more in the nature of two strangers thrown together by a common grief and searching for some common ground. I learned she was twenty-nine years old, had attended Harvard Law, that she liked boating, was a big runner, preferred red wine, liked to read in her spare time… and so forth. She wasn’t outwardly defensive, evasive, or anything. In fact, she remained impressively well-mannered, ladylike, expressive, great posture, and, if you’re interested, had really great legs. Yet, she was not particularly talkative or open. Clearly, she had an agenda and did not intend to expose more of herself than necessary.

  What she learned about me I wasn’t sure. I did note that her questions were both more disarming and more penetrating than mine, and it struck me that she was probably quite adept at drawing out witnesses in a courtroom, or ascertaining if her blind date is a phony shit.

  Also, her eyes were a sort of striking sea blue tone, which makes for a lovely contrast with black hair, and they had this almost foxlike quality to them, like she could see and detect things you might not want seen or detected.

  In summary, she was getting up to speed on me, and I was learning about her hobbies. So I said, “Your business card mentioned you’re an assistant DA.”

  “That’s right. Five years now.”

  “Like it?”

  “I like putting assholes behind bars.”

  “The Lord’s work.”

  “Amen.” She smiled and added, “Of course, the politics and bureaucracy I could do without.”

  I smiled back. I’d given her an opening.

  Without pausing, she asked, “If you don’t mind my asking, Sean, what’s your take on why Lisa was murdered?” This was asked with disarming casualness, like, Could you please pass the salt? Very cool.

  “And what makes you think it wasn’t a simple robbery?”

  “I’ve helped prosecute nearly thirty killings. I think I have a feel for the patterns.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Start with the victim. Lisa was too street-smart. She would’ve handed over her purse.”

  “Perhaps she saw the robber’s face and he wanted no witnesses. Or maybe he has a thing against women, or he was hopped up on something, or has a screw loose.”

  “Those are all possibilities. But consider the method. I had the taxi drive me by the Pentagon parking lot this afternoon. Lots of overhead lighting, cars coming and going… no thief with a brain in his head would pick such an exposed spot.”

  “Good point. Maybe he was an idiot.”

  She nodded, but said, “Also, her neck was broken from behind, hardly the direction a robber approaches his victim.” We looked at each other awhile before she said, “It doesn’t look like a robbery. It looks like something else.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Premeditated murder.”

  I pondered this, then said, “Motive, Counselor. Lisa wasn’t involved in anything dangerous. She’d just finished a year working in a civilian firm where her work was both nonprovocative and mundane.”

  “She was a criminal lawyer before that. How many criminal cases did she work on?”

  “A lot. Possibly hundreds.”

  “Last year, half a dozen lawyers were murdered for representing a party in a divorce case. I’ve had death threats, and I’ve been stalked. Isn’t it possible she made enemies?”

  “Let’s not confuse possible with likely.”

  “But you have to consider it.” She added, “Would your CID know what to look for?”

  “She had six years’ worth of cases. I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have a couple of experienced attorneys poking through her files than a warrant officer who has never tried a case and wouldn’t know a tort from a tortilla?”

  “What?”

  “You get my point.”

  “Yes, I get your point.” I twirled my finger in my beer suds. “And it’s a bad one. Lawyers don’t investigate murders, we prosecute and defend after the dust settles.”

  “I’m aware of the technicality.”

  “It’s more than a technicality.”

  “Well… let’s change the way it works.” She added, “You claim she was your friend.”

  So we were down to this. Shame on her.

  Appearances suggested that Miss Morrow was smart, disciplined, and, as the present setting indicated, stubborn, willful, and manipulative. Throw in her looks and “no” was a word I was willing to bet she did not hear often from the opposite sex. Her type don’t play fair. They get those two male brains pitted against each other, and the lower one cheats by draining all the blood out of the higher one. You get suffocated into doing idiotic things that aren’t in your best interest.

  Actually, I fully intended to stick my nose into Lisa’s murder investigation. I don’t go gently into the night when you murder someone I care deeply about. Legal professionals, like me, and, I suppose, like Janet, are professionally and personally aware of the odds in these things. Less than a third of murders get solved and only half those lead to convictions. I wasn’t expecting to solve the crime or anything, but I could and would prod, second-guess, and make myself a royal pain in the butt for the investigators.

  Add to that, Warrant Officer Spinelli pissed me off and it was now my God-given obligation to piss him off back. Petty and vind
ictive, I know, but it’s the regrettable code I live by.

  In fact, my ulterior motive for offering my services as survival assistance officer was to afford me the legal authority to sniff through Lisa’s personal effects and see if I found anything suspicious. Of all the thousands of people who walked out of the Pentagon that chilly evening, why her? Also the method of her death-it struck me as too personal. I thought the killer wanted to feel her, wanted to connect, wanted to make her murder an intimate experience.

  Robbery? Maybe. Or maybe not.

  So I briefly weighed the pros and cons of working with Miss Janet Morrow. On the plus side were her intimate knowledge of the deceased, her experience and expertise as a big-city criminal attorney, and she was obviously beautiful and sexy. Other men aren’t as impervious to feminine wiles and charms as me, and her looks could open a lot of doors. Also, I liked her voice. And she had great legs.

  Moving to the minus column, Janet Morrow lacked emotional distance. The cardinal rule of murder investigations is to focus on the perp, not the victim. Also, a certain coldheartedness is needed to sort facts from fiction, and there are times when the victim’s own faults or mistakes led directly or indirectly to their deaths. Dispassion is required and dispassion is impossible from a victim’s sister.

  “It’s out of the question. Sorry,” I informed her.

  She studied my face. “You’re wondering if I have the emotional mindset to handle this?”

  “That thought crossed my mind.”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  “Of course it will.”

  “No… it won’t.”

  “Nobody can shut down their emotions that way.”

  “I can.” Trying to appear sincere, she added, “I shed my tears this morning. I won’t cry again until this thing is finished.”

  “No… I’m sorry.”

  She waved an arm and the waiter rushed over. She looked up at him and said, “Check, please.”

  I said to Janet, “Please don’t take this personally.”

  “I won’t.” She smiled at me and dropped a twenty on the table. She got to her feet and asked, “Where do we start?”

  “ We don’t.”

  She took my arm and began leading me. “You drive. I took a taxi.”

  “Sure. What hotel did you say you were staying at?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Fort Myer is a small base located on Arlington Heights,a big lump of earth with a commanding view of the majestic city of Washington, D. C. The land was once part of the ancestral estate of a certain Anna Washington Custis, who married a certain Robert E. Lee, whose southern sympathies made it suddenly difficult for him to appear in Washington to pay the land taxes. The property fell into arrears, the government promptly seized the homestead, and somebody in the federal government with a sense of humor and/or irony converted the family homestead into a Union military base and a cemetery. Not amused, Lee did his best to fill the cemetery. The post has since become a quaint relic of Army times past, filled with ancient red-brick quarters for senior officers, horse stables, and ceremonial units. It was here where the Wright brothers launched the first military test flight; it crashed and burned, and on that oxymoronic note, the United States Air Force was born. On this same post, on a chilly December day, General George C. Marshall was interrupted from his horseback ride to be informed that the Japanese were kicking the crap out of Pearl Harbor. Much history, good, bad, and otherwise, has been written or buried inside its fences and accompanying cemetery.

  The Post military police station is a deceptively small red-brick building located near the community center.

  The young duty sergeant perked up as we entered and asked with rare enthusiasm, “Evening, ma’am. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, please,” Janet replied. “We’re looking for Mr. Spinelli.”

  “I’ll see if he’s in.” He pushed a button on his switch, had a brief conversation, then informed us, “He’ll be out in a minute.” He very politely asked, “Can I get you something, ma’am? Coffee? Soda?”

  I’ve been in a lot of MP stations and never been offered so much as a seat. Thirty seconds later, Spinelli cruised out of a back hallway.

  “Oh… you,” he said to me, followed by a half-assed salute.

  “Yeah… me.” Usually, it’s nice to be remembered; this obviously wasn’t one of those occasions. I added, “Mr. Spinelli… Janet Morrow, the victim’s sister.”

  Janet looked around the station as she asked him, “Could you spare a few minutes? In private?”

  “Maybe.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Why’s he here?”

  Good question. Why was he here? Could it be because he’s a gutless ninny who couldn’t stand by his convictions?

  But Janet didn’t say that. She said, “He’s handling the estate. He offered to chauffeur me around and I accepted. Ignore him.”

  Spinelli smiled and appeared to like that answer. But we were here to gain his confidence and cooperation, and I thought to myself that if that meant I had to eat a little humble pie, I’d just play along. This made me feel good about myself, that I could, you know, swallow my pride and accommodate Janet’s needs.

  I’d get Spinelli back later, of course.

  Nor had it escaped my notice how easily Janet picked up on the bad blood between us, nor how instinctively she exploited the mood. This was a woman with impressive situational awareness, and a good nose for male idiocy.

  “Follow me,” said Spinelli.

  So we did, back to his tiny, cramped office in the back, where a menagerie of framed I-adore-myself things were hung floor-to-ceiling. I spied around for the Dear John letters from former girl-friends, late notices from mortgage companies, and so forth. But they somehow didn’t make it to this wall. Well, probably they were hanging on another wall.

  As we got settled, I did spend a moment examining what was present-commendation letters from various generals, case closure awards, certificates of graduation from various technical courses, including the FBI Academy. The former attested that he was good at his job, the latter that he wasn’t quite the incompetent boob I had initially presumed. On paper.

  “Somethin’ particular you have in mind?” asked Spinelli as he fell back into his chair.

  Janet handed him her business card and by way of introduction said, “I won’t beat around the bush. I’ve taken thirty days off to find out who murdered my sister.”

  He studied her card for a moment. He asked, “And there’s a reason I should find this acceptable?”

  “A very good one, actually. You may need my help to solve this case.”

  “No shit?”

  “I’m perfectly serious.”

  He replied, “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

  Bad idea, Spinelli-the woman couldn’t spell no. I might’ve warned him about this, except I actually wanted to witness this scene. I mean, all this male machismo crap aside, it would harm my frail, frail ego to discover I was the only one she could drag around by the scrotum.

  But Spinelli was still shaking his head.

  Janet said, “I don’t want to play cop. I want to work with you. We have things to offer each other.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  She smiled sweetly and asked, “But would you at least answer a few questions?”

  He did not appear happy at this prospect, yet reluctantly said, “You bein’ family, a few.”

  “Thank you.” She paused a moment and then asked, “Did you return to the murder site and resweep the scene in daylight?”

  “Yeah. We quarantined the site last night, then came back with a full forensics team. We even brought dogs.”

  “Was any new evidence discovered?”

  “Not a thing. Sterile site.”

  “I called in permission this morning for an autopsy. Has it been conducted?”

  “This afternoon. But toxicology and lab results won’t be done till next week.”

  “You were present?”

  He nodded. “R
equired to be.”

  “What were the results?”

  “Hemorrhaging around the pupils, severe bruising on her left and right clavicles… the preliminary verdict, subject to the lab results, death by asphyxiation brought on by the fracture and dislocation of her vertebrae.”

  I watched Janet’s face to see how she responded to the clinical description of her sister’s death. Indeed, this was tough territory, and I found myself swallowing hard. But Janet nodded and suggested, cool as a pin, “Then allow me to reconstruct for a moment. One hand pinned her throat to keep her from screaming while the other twisted her head around to break her neck, right?”

  “That seems to be the technique.”

  “And which direction was her head twisted?”

  “The right.”

  “Indicating a right-handed killer, correct?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Further indicating the murderer was a male, correct?”

  “It takes great strength to snap a neck.” In other words, yes.

  She asked, “Any particles or skin in her fingernails?”

  “Yeah. There was.”

  “Skin?”

  “Deerskin.”

  “Then the killer wore gloves.” He nodded again, and she then hypothesized, “The gloves were to protect against fingerprints.” When he didn’t respond to that, she suggested, “And from that, is it safe to assume the murder was premeditated?”

  “From that, it’s safe to assume it was cold. I wore gloves.”

  They stopped dueling for a moment to catch their breath.

  Janet’s courtroom experience and technique were evident and impressive. She understood the trail of evidence in a murder investigation, what questions to ask and which to avoid. Some lawyers are very good at this. Some lawyers should consider a different line of work.

  Spinelli, no hump either, had stuck obstinately to the facts and displayed impressive restraint when she tried to prod or lead him into conclusions and conjecture. All in all, he was a tough egg to crack.